Farage’s Reform Sparks Immigration Storm
Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party have unveiled one of their most controversial policies yet, and it’s sending shockwaves across British politics. The party has announced that, if it comes to power, it would abolish indefinite leave to remain —that’s the right that allows migrants to stay in Britain permanently after five years. Instead, migrants would be forced onto rolling visas, having to reapply every five years under tougher conditions.
Now, under the current system, people can build their lives here, study, work, and eventually apply for British citizenship. Reform wants to tear that up. They’ve argued that only British citizens should have access to welfare, saying this change could save the UK an estimated £234 billion over several decades. That figure, though, has already been widely challenged, with Labour’s Rachel Reeves calling it unrealistic and “without basis in reality.” Even the think tank whose report was cited has distanced itself from that number.
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Nigel Farage, unveiling the policy, framed it bluntly. He said Britain should not be “the world’s food bank,” insisting that welfare should not be available to people “coming in from all over the world.” He admitted that families could be split apart and communities disrupted, but argued that British citizens have been unfairly priced out of jobs and housing by “cheap foreign labour.” His message was clear: migrants currently settled here should not assume permanence.
The proposals don’t stop there. Reform has promised new visa routes for entrepreneurs and investors, and a special scheme called Acute Skills Shortage Visas . Under that plan, companies could recruit from abroad only if they also trained a British worker. They would also raise the wait for citizenship from six years to seven.
What makes this policy explosive is that it wouldn’t just apply to future arrivals. Hundreds of thousands of people already living in the UK—many of them with families, jobs, and deep roots—would see their status ripped away unless they met new conditions, like higher income thresholds and stronger English requirements. That retrospective element is being described as unprecedented, with critics warning it could throw countless lives into chaos.
The backlash has been fierce. Labour has dismissed the savings claims and accused Reform of back-of-a-cigarette-packet politics. Conservatives say the idea is a half-baked copy of their own migration proposals. The Liberal Democrats have gone further, calling the policy “not serious” and warning it would damage the economy. London mayor Sadiq Khan branded it “unacceptable,” while others have used words like “obscene,” “inhumane,” and even “un-British.”
Still, Farage is doubling down. He says this is about correcting what he calls the “Boris wave”—millions who came to the UK after Brexit under looser rules. For him, this is the big dividing line: welfare and settlement rights should be reserved only for British citizens, no exceptions.
Whether this vision ever becomes reality remains to be seen, but one thing is clear. Reform’s announcement has forced the debate on immigration into new and deeply contentious territory, leaving both Labour and the Conservatives scrambling for a response while migrants across the country are left fearing for their future.
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