AFGHANISTAN is “ready and willing” to strike an illegal migrant returns deal with Nigel Farage, the Taliban confirmed last night.
A senior official suggested the extremist group would ask for aid to support deported Afghans instead of money.
Reform UK Party Leader Nigel Farage pointed to a departure board for illegal migrants as he announced Reform’s plan for mass deportations yesterday[/caption]
Nigel Farage confirmed 600,000 illegal migrants would be sent packing under his party’s plan[/caption]
The Taliban has confirmed it is ready to strike a migrant returns deal with Mr Farage[/caption]
The official told The Telegraph: “We are ready and willing to receive and embrace whoever he [Nigel Farage] sends us.
“We are prepared to work with anyone who can help end the struggles of Afghan refugees, as we know many of them do not have a good life abroad.
“We will not take money to accept our own people, but we welcome aid to support newcomers, since there are challenges in accommodating and feeding those returning from Iran and Pakistan.
“Afghanistan is home to all Afghans, and the Islamic Emirate is determined to make this country a place where everyone – those already here, those returning, or those being sent back from the West by Mr Farage or anyone else – can live with dignity.”
The Taliban official also suggested it will be easier for Afghanistan to “deal” with Reform than Labour.
He said: “We will have to see what Mr Farage does when or if he becomes prime minister of Britain, but since his views are different, it may be easier to deal with him than with the current ones.
“We will accept anyone he sends, whether they are legal or illegal refugees in Britain.”
The Taliban are hardline Islamist militants who seized back control of Afghanistan in 2021 after two decades of war.
They enforce brutal Sharia law, with strict rules on women, media and daily life, backed by violence and fear.
Branded terrorists by the West, they’re accused of harbouring extremists and crushing human rights while clinging to power.
It came as Mr Farage yesterday vowed to deport 600,000 illegal migrants in his first term in office – in a crackdown he claims will save taxpayers billions.
The Reform UK boss said the public mood over Channel crossings was “a mix between total despair and rising anger”, warning of a “genuine threat to public order” unless Britain acts fast.
This morning Tory Chairman Kevin Hollinrake confirmed his party would also “potentially” look to strike a returns agreement with the Taliban.
He added that his party’s deportation plan, which was published in May, is “far more comprehensive than the one we’ve seen from Reform, in that it dealt with both legal migration and illegal migration”.
Nigel Farage has laid down the immigration gauntlet ferociously — but serious questions remain
IN typically ferocious style, Nigel Farage yesterday laid down the gauntlet to Labour on immigration.
How the Government responds may well end up deciding whether it wins a second term.
Farage speaks ordinary Brits’ language and understands their “total despair”.
His cure for the crisis was plenty of harsh medicine:
1. Deportation flights starting immediately and ultimately booting out up to 600,000 illegals.
2. Bringing back Rwanda-style deals with third countries — the only proper deterrent to the small boats we ever had, and foolishly scrapped by Labour.
3. Ripping up European human rights laws and quitting the ECHR, which will also go down well with voters.
Labour will never do it and the Tories have dithered. But can Farage actually deliver it?
How will he achieve returns deals with rogue and failed states such as Iran and Afghanistan?
Many Brits will be wary of his idea of giving taxpayers’ cash to the vile Taliban regime.
The Tories tried for years to bring in a British Bill of Rights and failed.
Where does Northern Ireland and the complicated rules around the Good Friday Agreement fit in?
If he wants to be Prime Minister, Farage will have to provide some serious answers.
Unveiling a five-year emergency programme, dubbed Operation Restoring Justice, Mr Farage yesterday tore into what he called an “invasion” on Britain’s borders and pledged the boldest deportation plan ever put forward by a UK party.
Speaking at an aircraft hangar in Oxfordshire, Mr Farage declared: “If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay, period.
“That is our big message from today, and we are the first party to put out plans that could actually make that work.”
Reform’s plan centres on a new Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill, which would make it the Home Secretary’s legal duty to remove anyone who arrives unlawfully, and strip courts and judges of the power to block flights.
Britain would quit the European Convention on Human Rights, scrap the Human Rights Act and suspend the Refugee Convention for five years.
Reform would also make re-entry after deportation a crime carrying up to five years in jail, enforce a lifetime ban on returning, and make tearing up ID papers punishable by the same penalty.
Mr Farage said women and children would be detained and removed under the plans, with “phase one” focusing on men and women and unaccompanied minors deported “towards the latter half of that five years”.
He even raised the prospect that children born in Britain to parents who arrived illegally could also be deported, but admitted it would be “complex”.
He said: “How far back you go with this is the difficulty, and I accept that… I’m not standing here telling you all of this is easy, all of this is straightforward.”
There would also be a six-month “Assisted Voluntary Return Window” with cash incentives to leave before Border Force begins US-style raids. Mr Farage said: “Will Border Force be seeking out people who are here illegally, possibly many of them working in the criminal economy?
“Yes, it’s what normal countries do all over the world.
“What sane country would allow undocumented young males to break into its country, to put them up in hotels, they even get dental care? How about that?
“Most people can’t get an NHS dentist. This is not what normal countries do.”
The scheme would also see prefab detention camps built on surplus RAF and MoD land, holding up to 24,000 people within 18 months.
Inmates would be housed in two-man blocks with food halls and medical suites – and would not be allowed out.
Five deportation flights would take off every day, with RAF planes on standby if charter jets were blocked.
The Promises are Big
By RYAN SABEY, Deputy Political Editor
Nigel Farage has set out his “I’ll stop at nothing” plans to tackle illegal immigration.
This is the plan the Reform UK say will help stop the small boats crisis within days of being enacted.
He is ready to get a mandate for his big, bold plans and put it into practice – even prepared to pay the Taliban to take back migrants.
Nigel Farage spent an hour on the subject with a speech and questions as he set out his stall at an Oxfordshire airfield.
The promises are big as he says 600,000 migrants will be deported in the first five years of a Reform government.
Five flights a day will take off taking these migrants back to their home countries – saving possibly hundreds of billions over time.
But as he sets out these policies and the detail, it will allow both Labour and the Tories to look through the detail and expose any flaws.
But while the parties argue among the detail over leaving the European Convention of Human Rights, there will be growing support from the public as the issue fails to be tackled.
He said this morning that the growing anger here is a “threat to public order”.
As we have seen at protests outside migration hotels across the country, this disquiet will only grow.
Farage is comfortable talking on migration – now Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch need to find their own answers to one of the biggest questions for voters.
On stage, Mr Farage turned to Reform efficiency chief Zia Yusuf and asked: “But do we realistically think, Zia, that we can deport 500,000 to 600,000 people in the lifetime of the first Parliament?”
Mr Yusuf replied: “Totally,” later suggesting the figure could top 650,000- more than ten times last year’s 9,072 deportations.
The senior Reform figure vowed: “With Nigel as Prime Minister, not a single lawyer nor judge that will be able to stop a deportation flight.”
Reform costed the scheme at £10billion over five years, but insisted it would save £7billion in the first parliament and £42billion over a decade by axing hotel bills, housing costs and welfare.
To secure returns, a £2billion fund would be offered to countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran.
Asked if that meant payments to the Taliban or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mr Farage did not respond directly, but said no illegal migrants from Iran should be able to walk the streets of Britain.
The Reform UK boss did said some exceptions would apply, insisting “brave” Afghan interpreters who aided British troops against the Taliban “absolutely” deserved protection.
He added: “The British public want this issue dealt with – end of story. The actions of those brave and concerned parents in Epping are the clearest example yet that ordinary, decent people have simply had enough. The time for bold action has arrived.”
Downing Street hit back by branding the plans “old gimmicks” but was forced into an extraordinary admission that it would not rule out striking returns agreements with regimes such as the Taliban to take back their nationals.
Asked whether the Government could do deals with Afghanistan and Eritrea, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We’re not going to take anything off the table in terms of striking returns agreements with countries around the world.”
Officials rejected Mr Farage’s claim that Britain is on the brink of civil disorder, but admitted Sir Keir Starmer “recognises the strength of feeling” on the small boats crisis.
No10 also ruled out quitting the European Convention on Human Rights, with Sir Keir’s spokesman insisting: ““The ECHR underpins key international agreements, trade, security and migration and the Good Friday Agreement. Anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious.”
But the PM is under growing pressure from his own MPs to take a tougher stance.
Labour backbenchers warn voters will not forgive another failure to stop the boats, with one Red Wall MP telling The Sun: “On day one, we should fire the Attorney General, lay a bill in Parliament to unilaterally re-interpret ECHR with threat of suspending membership and start requisitioning several military processing and internment sites.
“We should also put the Navy on standby and find a long-term offshore processing location whether by agreement or UK territory.
“By the day 30, we should draft new international treaty on asylum.
“What we need is risk appetite, clarity of purpose, urgency, politics before law. We are doing none of those.”
The Government is preparing to send the first small boat arrivals back to France under its new one-in, one-out deal.
But crossings are continuing at record pace, with 28,947 people already making the journey this year, including 659 on Monday alone.
The UK coastguard also confirmed it was involved in the rescue of “a number” of boats in the Channel yesterday.
