Nigel Farage said he was willing to accept people being tortured and put to death because of his policies, if it meant he could deport more migrants.
Launching his hard-right mass deportation plan, the Reform leader said he would scrap Britain’s human rights protections, lock up women and children, put peace in Northern Ireland under threat and risk going to war with the church.
He promised uniformed officers raiding Britain’s towns and cities, disappearing people off the street for rendition to countries they’ve never been to, with no recourse to legal protections, claiming that it’s what “normal countries do.”
Farage also said he wanted to fund the Taliban in return for them taking more people from the UK to torture and murder in Afghanistan.
Here’s a roundup of the deeply troubling things Farage is willing to do to Britain in order to make his dream of deporting more foreigners come true.
1. Removing human rights protections from all UK citizens
Nigel Farage says he wants to scrap the human rights protections written into British law.
To be clear, he’s not just talking about removing protections from asylum seekers or people who entered the country illegally.
He’s talking about removing it from everyone, replacing it with an outdated, every-man-for-himself “common law” system of “freedoms”.
Britain’s human rights protections were developed by British lawyers in response to the horrors of World War II.
And among the very good reasons human rights shouldn’t be decided on by the government is that they’re designed to protect you from the government acting badly.
On a large scale, the European Convention on Human Rights has been critical in uncovering the Thalidomide scandal in the late 1970s.
In the late 90s, a case before the European Court was the catalyst for ending the UK’s ban on LGBT people in the military, something that has been declared by successive governments as a “national shame”.
It’s stopped the military using torture techniques since the 70s, protected children suffering abuse and ensured the government can’t store your DNA and fingerprint records unless you’ve committed a crime.
Nigel Farage wants to get rid of the system that made all of that possible.
2. Sending people to be tortured and murdered
Nigel Farage was repeatedly asked how he would feel about people being tortured or murdered as a result of his policies.
His plan would see Britain removed from the UN Convention against Torture for five years.
And he indicated he would be fine with sending people to be tortured or murdered if it meant he got his way.
Asked whether it bothered him at all that thousands of people could be sent to be tortured or killed, he said that it did, but it bothered him less than removing migrants from the UK.
“The alternative is to do nothing…” He said, and claimed the result of his extremist plan not being enacted would be more “civil disorder” in Britain.
“We cannot be responsible for all the sins around the world,” he said. “It’s just literally impossible.”
3. Uniformed deportation squads going through British towns
Asked if he was comfortable with Border Force squads going through British towns, looking for people who are here illegally, who may have families or children – creating fear and worry for people who are in the country legally, but have seen people wrongly pursued for deportation because of errors.
“They won’t have been living here legally, will they?,” Farage said. “They’ll have been living here illegally.”
He said the Windrush scandal was a “mess over paperwork”, but didn’t say how he’d avoid similar “mess” in the future.
And he said he was fine with immigration squads raiding Britain’s towns, because it is “what normal countries do.”
4. Funding Taliban jihadi terrorists
Farage acknowledged that his plan would almost certainly involve the British state paying Taliban jihadis to torture and murder more people.
He said he would be fine with the UK Government funding the Taliban, or even Iran, in negotiating a “return agreement” to take back refugees fleeing either regime.
He wouldn’t say how much he’d be willing to pay them.
The Lib Dems ’ Daisy Cooper said: “Reform’s Taliban tribute plan would send British taxpayers’ cash to fund their oppressive regime, fuelling the persecution of Afghan women and children and betraying our brave Armed Forces who sacrificed so much fighting the Taliban.
“Clearly British values mean nothing to Farage and his band of plastic patriots.”
5. Locking up women and children
In the year to June, around three quarters of people entering the country illegally were adult males.
But that still leaves a quarter who were not. A breakdown of government figures shows more than 5,000 women and children would be locked up under Farage’s plan.
Many women and children who arrive in the UK through irregular routes are victims of modern slavery or human trafficking.
Asked whether those people would be locked up, Farage said: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.”
6. Put peace in Northern Ireland under threat
Farage acknowledged that pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights would create significant problems with the Good Friday Agreement, the fragile truce that maintains the shaky peace in Northern Ireland.
Farage suggested it would be possible to “renegotiate” the agreement to remove the ECHR for it, but that it would take “longer.”
He gave no indication of how he would do so, or what would happen to Northern Ireland in the meantime. This is unlikely to be acceptable to the people or politicians of Northern Ireland.
7. Going to war with the church
Asked how pursuing such a fundamentally un-Christian policy squared with his claim to be pursuing a “muscular” defence of judeo-Christian values, Farage indicated he was up for a fight with the Church.
“Whoever the Christian leaders are at any particular point in time,” he said, scrambling to square the circle, “I think over the last decades quite a few of them have been rather out of touch, perhaps with their own flock.”
Here’s a few bible quotes that suggest it’s the policy that’s out of touch with Christian teaching.
“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” – Exodus 22:21
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:28
“He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing,” – Deuteronomy 10:18
“You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.” – Leviticus 24:22
Then there’s the “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” story from Matthew 25.
Farage added: “We believe that what we’re offering is right and proper.”