British political parties are scrambling to launch manifestos, get canvassers on the streets, register candidates, and organise public events. Rishi Sunak’s decision to hold a July 4th general election took the British political class by surprise, except for the Tory insiders who used the opportunity to violate British law by making bets on the election days before it was announced, thereby winning themselves some cash. This violation of UK betting law is now under investigation.
Conservative corruption aside, the parties have released their manifestos and Reform UK’s is by far the most interesting. The party, now led by Nigel Farage, is neck-and-neck with the Conservatives in the polls, and in much of the Midlands and North of England Reform UK is the primary challenger to Labour. Reform UK’s promises matter, especially after 14 years of failed Conservative governance which has seen millions more non-Whites settle in the United Kingdom.
White Papers has decided to take a look into Reform UK’s immigration policies and to run the numbers. What would Farage’s policies result in? Would they improve the demographic situation of native (White) Britons? Are these policies worth supporting?
It is worth mentioning now that Reform UK’s manifesto does not explicitly mention White Britons and that Nigel Farage has boasted several times about “destroying” nationalist forces in the United Kingdom. These details are significant, but not as significant as what the effect of Reform UK’s policies might be on Britain and its native people.
Reform UK’s manifesto contains 28 pages and roughly 21 individual policy areas. Immigration, rather fittingly, is the first policy area that the manifesto explores and contains seven individual policy pledges within it:
- Freeze Non-Essential Immigration
- Stop the Boats with our 4-Point Plan
- Secure Detention for all Illegal Migrants
- Immediate Deportation for Foreign Criminals
- Bar Student Dependents
- Stop Health Tourism and Immediate Access to Benefits
- Employer Immigration Tax
Under each policy heading, the party has also written a brief blurb, some of which are merely descriptive while others contain more specific policy promises within them.
Freeze Non-Essential Immigration:
Strict limits on immigration are the only way to relieve the pressure on our housing, public services, increase wages and protect our culture, identity and values. Essential skills, mainly around healthcare, must be the only exception.
Everything Reform UK writes in that brief sentence is true, yet the statement still leaves much to be desired.
To begin with, some 350,000 health and care visas were issued to immigrant healthcare workers and their dependent family members in 2023. In total, some 75% of visas were issued as a result of this single category of immigrants, and this is not unique to 2023. In 2022 58% of visas were issued to migrants arriving to work in the health and care sector. Overall work visa grants are two and a half times higher than they were pre-pandemic and multitudes higher when one focuses on health and care visas.
Farage does not specify whether they will reduce immigration in this category, but whether or not Reform UK would do so is key to the immigration situation in the country.
If Farage did not reduce the health and care visa grants then net immigration to the United Kingdom will continue to run above 200,000 each year via the ‘legal’ route.
However, if Farage reduced health and care visa issuance to pre-pandemic levels the UK would see a constant outflow of people. Each year roughly 150,000-180,000 non-White immigrants depart the United Kingdom. If Farage froze all other visa issuance and issued roughly 50,000-70,000 health and care visas each year (including to dependents) then the UK could expect to see a net non-White migration rate of negative 100,000 or more a year.
Depending on the specifics of this policy a four-year Reform UK administration could either see 800,000 additional legal immigrants and their dependents arrive to Britain’s shores or some 400,000 non-White immigrants and their dependents depart the United Kingdom for other lands.
Stop the Boats with our 4-Point Plan:
Leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Zero illegal immigrants to be resettled in the UK. New Department of Immigration. Pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France.
Farage’s plan to stop the boats is one of the more detailed immigration policies of the bunch.
The first step, leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), is an excellent idea. The ECHR is enforced by the European Court of Human Rights which serves as an international judicial that signatory states are bound by law to obey even when those rulings are against their national interest and the Democratic will of their people.
The court has become increasingly liberal and interventionist in recent years. In 2018 the court ruled that Romania was obligated to legalise same-sex marriage. Romania later appealed this ruling to the court’s higher chamber where, in September of 2023, the nation was again told it must legalise same-sex marriage. These rulings stand in direct violation of the will of the Romanian people 58% of whom opposed gay marriage in a March 2023 GLOBSEC survey. In another 2023 survey, conducted by Eurobarometer, 69% of Romanians were opposed to gay marriage.
The European Court of Human Rights also ruled that Ukraine must legalize same-sex marriage, despite the fact that only marriage between a man and woman is recognized by the Ukrainian constitution.
On the immigrant front, the court has ruled that criminal refugees cannot be deported and it may be the case that returning migrants to safe third countries is prohibited by previous rulings under the ECHR.
Farage’s next two points, zero resettlement and a new department of immigration are also excellent ideas, though what that department might do is not explained in further detail.
The final point, tugging illegal channel migrants back to France, is fascinating. The idea is inspired by the Australian’s Operation Sovereign Borders which was effective in stopping illegal immigrants arriving by boat from Indonesia. The Australians simply tow the immigrants back to Indonesian waters and, if necessary, provide the migrants with a more reliable craft in which to return to land.
Secure Detention for Illegal Immigrants:
All asylum seekers that arrive illegally from safe countries will be processed rapidly, offshore if necessary. Those entering from a safe country will also be barred from claiming asylum or citizenship. No legal aid for non-citizens. Those rejected will be returned.
This proposal is extremely straightforward and would essentially eliminate asylum inflow into the United Kingdom.
The British state deports fewer than 3,000 failed asylum seekers a year, and this number continues to decline and has done so since 2010.
On top of this failure to deport failed asylum seekers the asylum racket is the cost to British taxpayers, who are now funding an asylum system that costs £4 billion a year. Worse yet, if current trends persist the asylum system will cost Britons well over £11 billion annually by 2026.
By intercepting, turning back, detaining, and deporting illegally arriving asylum seekers Reform UK and Farage would be saving the British public tens of billions of pounds and a great deal of heartache.
Nigel Farage has also clarified in a recent tweet that Reform UK would deport “all illegal migrants” in the United Kingdom. This is fantastic, considering that there are as many as 1.2 million illegal immigrants in the UK, roughly one million of whom are non-White.
Immediate Deportation for Foreign Criminals:
Deport foreign nationals immediately after their prison sentence ends. Withdraw citizenship from immigrants who commit crime with the exception of some misdemeanour offences.
This is perhaps one of the more interesting and impactful policies. More than 1.6 million ethnic minority residents of the United Kingdom have been convicted of a crime and a great many of them either hold or are eligible for a foreign passport.
Some 50% of Asians and 40% of Blacks in the United Kingdom hold or qualify for citizenship of their ethnic homeland. Were Farage to seriously implement his policy it would result in the deportation of upwards of 720,000 ethnic minority criminals from the United Kingdom.
And one must take into account the family members of these foreign criminals. The average non-White in the United Kingdom is part of a home with 2.3 residents. This indicates that more than a million spouses, dependants, and children might also depart the United Kingdom with their denaturalised criminal family members.
Bar Student Dependents:
Introduce new visa rules for international students that bar dependents. Only international students with essential skills can remain in the UK. Close down fake courses and immigration schemes that abuse the rules.
The first policy point regarding bearing student dependents is quite significant. Currently, more than 200,000 dependents of student visa holders reside in the United Kingdom, and this number has increased rapidly since 2019. It is also worth pointing out that the lion’s share of this demographic is non-White.
Banning the resettlement of student dependents would see the removal of this entire population of visa holders as the visas held by students (and their dependents) expired over 5 years. By 2029 all 200,000 of these dependents would be required to leave the United Kingdom as their visas would no longer be valid.
It is also nice to see Reform UK make mention of student visa fraud schemes, which are extremely widespread in the United Kingdom. Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of fake students are issued false documentation each year to enable them to enter the United Kingdom under student visas, where they then begin working instead of studying. This is a problem Reform UK should absolutely tackle.
Still, Reform UK’s student immigrant policy leaves much to be desired. Between 2011 and 2018 an average of 180,000 student visas were issued a year for immigrant students. This figure jumped to 244,000 in 2019 and has, since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, skyrocketed. In 2022 some 486,000 student visas were issued, an 81% increase on the 2019 figures.
The manifesto makes no mention of whether Reform UK intends to reduce the overall number of foreign students in the United Kingdom, but he absolutely should. Foreign students take hundreds of medical school places from British students and more than a quarter of them then depart the United Kingdom.
Farage has, in past GB News videos, said he would slash the number of foreign students coming to the United Kingdom though he gave no specific numbers.
Stop Health Tourism and Immediate Access to Benefits:
We will impose a requirement of 5 years residency and employment to claim any benefits in the UK
This policy position really speaks for itself. Foreigners should not be allowed to access the British welfare state and those who arrive in Britain simply for the ability to do so may well depart the country when they no longer receive preferential treatment.
What the Reform UK manifesto does not mention is if this policy would apply retroactively to the nearly 2 million people the Tories have let in just in the past several years.
Employer Immigration Tax:
The National Insurance rate will be raised to 20% for foreign workers. This would incentivise businesses to employ British citizens whose National Insurance rate would stay at 13.8%. Essential foreign health and care workers would be exempt from the tax, as would businesses who employ 5 staff members and under. This would boost wages and could raise more than £20 billion over five years to pay for apprenticeships and training for young Brits
This policy could be quite impactful on the British labor market. Assuming that companies would be willing to hold onto their high-skilled and medium-high-skilled foreign labor is a safe bet, these employees likely make more money for these corporations and the hit to national insurance tax would be worth keeping them on.
Where this policy might be most impactful is with the 42% of foreign-born workers who are medium-low and low-skilled. 33% of Indians in the UK, 36% of East Asians, 45% and Africans, and 56% of Pakistanis and South Asians fall into these low-skilled categories.
Overall this policy could affect as many as 1.2 million non-citizen non-EU (non-White) workers in the United Kingdom by forcing them out of the labor market and, ideally, out of the United Kingdom.
Conclusion:
If the immigration platform of Reform UK were enacted along with the other policy comments made by Nigel Farage himself, it would go a long way to reversing the decades of demographic change which have taken place in the United Kingdom.
As many as 3.4 million non-Whites could be removed from the country under the policy platform that Farage has put forward. This figure does not count the many millions more dependents (spouses, children, etc) of most of these individuals.
This set of policies could increase the native (White) British share of the population from 76.8% of the overall population to 81%, reversing 13 years of the demographic damage done under the Tories. While the total White share of the UK’s population would increase from 83% to 87% under this suite of policies.
There is much more that Farage could do, however.
White Papers continues to recommend that all non-White non-citizens in the United Kingdom have their visas progressively phased out through non-renewal so that they depart the country. Most non-White dual nationals should have their UK citizenship revoked by the Home Office (as current legislation allows). Finally, all those who would be willing to repatriate to their ethnic homelands should be incentivized to do so with financial means.
81% British is still unacceptably low. The British must be the undisputed supermajority within their homeland.
This article originally appeared on White Papers, and is published by The Noticer with permission. Follow the White Papers Policy Institute on Telegram here.
