Nigel Farage has unveiled a new migration plan today, promising drastic cuts to welfare spending as part of his efforts to tackle the UK’s immigration system.
Speaking at a Reform UK press conference, The leader of the party criticised successive Governments for failing to deal with illegal immigration.
Speaking at the conference, Mr Farage said: "I’ve been told for 20 years to shut up and go away, because it’s good for the economy and that is all that matters.
"Well, quite how you measure quality of life against the economy I don’t know. But now we’re beginning to learn the truth, that simply what we’ve been told on this wasn’t true.
Nigel Farage said he will make welfare cuts
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“Far too many who come don’t work, have never worked, and never will work, the ability to bring dependants of all kinds.
"And when you start to realise that most of those who come are very low-skilled and on very low wages, you start to get a very, very different picture.
"In fact, you start to get a massive benefits bill. We are here to make massive future cuts to welfare spending.”
Mr Farage also revealed that if elected, he plans to "abolish leave to remain."
He explained: "We will not only say that these people do not qualify for indefinite leave to remain, we will abolish indefinite leave to remain as a category in this country."
The Reform UK leader said the anticipated cost of the more than 800,000 people expected to qualify for leave to remain in the next three years is £230 billion, what he described as a “truly eye-watering sum of money.”
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Nigel Farage was joined by Zia Yusuf, Reform’s head of DOGE, who added: "We have to make these changes.
“It’s the only way to prevent Britain frankly going bankrupt many times over as a result of these issues.”
The pair discussed The Boris Wave of migration at length, which refers to the sharp increase in migration to the UK after January 2021, when the post-Brexit visa rules implemented under Boris Johnson came into force.
Nigel Farage spoke to reporters about his parties migration plan
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Mr Farage said: "We are not the world’s food bank. It is not for us to provide welfare for people coming in from all over the world.
“The 800,000 people that will get indefinite leave to remain unless this policy is revoked tend to be young, they tend to be low-skilled. They are going to be a huge burden on the state.
He added: "I understand we’re aiming to high, I understand we’re ambitious. We need to be. The country’s in dire trouble, dire trouble economically, dire trouble socially."