Nigel Farage claimed he was ‘clear’ that women and children would not be deported in the first five years of a Reform government – 24 hours after his sidekick said the opposite
Nigel Farage’s draconian deportation plans have taken another puzzling twist after he now claimed women and children will be exempt for five years.
He made the remark after sidekick Zia Yusuf said the exact opposite 24 hours opposite, sparking a fierce backlash. Mr Farage appeared to re-write his party’s policy after being challegned over whether he had a “woman problem”.
He was asked if his concerns about women’s safety rings hollow after he committed to sending women and children to countries where they could be “raped, tortured and killed”. Speaking to journalists in Scotland he responded: “I was very, very clear yesterday what I said that that the deportation of illegal immigrants, we were not even discussing women and children at this stage.”
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But on Tuesday he had stood alongside Mr Yusuf when he said “phase one” of the party’s plans would focus on adults, with unaccompanied children being removed “towards the latter half of that five years”. Definant Mr Farage said today: “There are so many illegal males in Britain, and the news reports that said that after my conference yesterday were wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong.”
But he then went on to hint that deporting women and children to countries like Afghanistan is very much on his to-do list. He said: “I didn’t say exempt forever, but at this stage it’s not part of our plan for the next five years.”
During an address in Oxford – in which he admitted large parts of his plan had not been worked out – Mr Farage said “how we deal with children is much more complicated”. But he told a hangar full of Reform loyalists and journalists: “Women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.”
He claimed Reform would aim to deport around 600,000 asylum seekers in five years. This would cost an estimated £10billion, his party insisted – in spite of a similar plan by former colleague Rupert Lowe priced up at five times that sum.
Facing journalists in Scotland – where the unveiling of Tory defector Graham Simpson turned sour – Mr Farage was pressed about comments by former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. He was told she had called him “someone with a very fragile ego who is not comfortable, particularly around women”.
Asked if Reform has a women problem, Mr Farage said: “You might have noticed but there’s been quite a phenomenon happening within this party over the course of the summer.
“They grouped together, they’re called Women For reform. And you will now see them appearing increasingly on national television and in national papers.
“And there’s been a lot of women who have joined us over the course of the summer particularly.”
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