\n<\/p>\n
Nigel Farage has pledged to abolish what he called the \u201cgrossly unfair\u201d main route for immigrants to gain British citizenship, threatening tens of thousands of people legally living in the UK with deportation unless they meet strict rules.<\/p>\n
The Reform UK leader said his plans would target the \u201cBoriswave\u201d \u2013 the wave of legal immigrants who arrived in the UK under post-Brexit rules established by Boris Johnson \u2013 which he described as the \u201cgreatest betrayal of democratic wishes certainly in anyone\u2019s living memory\u201d.<\/p>\n
Unveiling his plans, Farage said 800,000 people who \u201ctend to be young, tend to be low-skilled\u201d were due to qualify for indefinite leave to remain in the UK over the next three to four years.<\/p>\n
He said this group were \u201cgoing to be a huge burden on the state\u201d, that Britain was \u201cnot the world\u2019s food bank\u201d and that it was \u201cnot for us to provide welfare for people coming in from all over the world\u201d.<\/p>\n
Farage said he would entirely abolish indefinite leave to remain (ILR), which is open to people who have worked and lived in the UK legally for five continuous years, and their dependants. After a minimum of a year on that status, people can apply for a British passport, though each stage comes with considerable fees.<\/p>\n
Much of the increase in legal migration under Conservative governments starting with Johnson\u2019s was because of schemes to settle refugees from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
At a tetchy press conference alongside his policy chief, Zia Yusuf, on Monday morning, Farage was forced to qualify the announcement while refusing to answer questions on how much it would cost and who it would affect.<\/p>\n
The proposals came under fire from Downing Street, which accused Farage of wanting to \u201cfoster division\u201d, and from Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London.<\/p>\n
Farage claimed the policy would save \u00a3234bn, a figure sourced from a Centre for Policy Studies report that has been withdrawn because of a dispute over the numbers. The thinktank said its figures \u201cshould not be used\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he would withdraw the \u00a3230bn figure in light of this, Farage said it was \u201cwithout a doubt too low\u201d and \u201cunderestimates things\u201d.<\/p>\n
Yusuf argued the true number of people who would be applying for ILR in the coming years was likely to be more than 800,000 because many of the people who have arrived after Brexit came from non-EU countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think French people and Swedish people and Finns are more or less likely to apply for ILR and ultimately citizenship in this country than people from India, Afghanistan or Pakistan? I think we all know the answer to that question,\u201d Yusuf said.<\/p>\n
Farage said that under a Reform government anyone who had indefinite leave to remain would have it rescinded and would need to reapply for a visa, throwing the lives and status of many families into uncertainty.<\/p>\n
In response to questions from journalists, Yusuf clarified that the policy would not apply to EU citizens who have been granted settled status in the UK. But he said there were \u201ca lot of EU nationals in this country who are drawing on universal credit, so you can expect Nigel\u2019s government to open negotiations with the European Union specifically about the welfare aspect\u201d.<\/p>\n
Farage refused to specify whether the policy would apply to the Ukrainians and Hongkongers who moved to Britain under dedicated visa routes for refugees fleeing Russia\u2019s invasion and China\u2019s crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Asked to substantiate his claim in Monday\u2019s Daily Mail that most migrants rely on benefits, Farage said he was \u201cfirmly of the belief with research backing it up\u201d that more than 50% of the people due to become eligible for ILR in the next few years \u201care not working, have not worked and in all probability will never, ever work\u201d.<\/p>\n
Instead of granting them ILR, Reform would make non-UK citizens continue to apply for visas with new high salary thresholds, though the party has not specified what those thresholds would be.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The Times reported they would be set at about \u00a360,000, which would be a considerable increase on the current skilled worker visa, which requires people to earn \u00a341,700 a year.<\/p>\n Those visas would not allow the people who have them to access NHS services or benefits and would require advanced English, with strict new limits on whether spouses or family members could join.<\/p>\n The changes would also mean that those applying for citizenship must wait at least seven years and prove a fluent level of English, as well as giving up citizenship of any other country.<\/p>\n Keir Starmer\u2019s political spokesperson said the country was at a crossroads between \u201cnational renewal\u201d and \u201cthe path of division and decline, which Reform wants to put the country on\u201d.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cEvery week Nigel Farage sets out unrealistic, unworkable and unfunded plans. You\u2019ve heard the prime minister talk about the politics of grievance that Reform thrives on. They don\u2019t want to tackle the issues facing the country, they want to foster division.\u201d<\/p>\n Labour has already announced plans to introduce tough restrictions on indefinite leave to remain, meaning most applicants must have been in the UK for 10 years before they can apply.<\/p>\n However, a Labour source disputed claims in the Telegraph that significant numbers of migrants with indefinite leave to remain were receiving benefits, saying it was only about 16% of all foreign claims. The majority \u2013 60%, equating to about 770,000, according to government figures \u2013 are EU citizens who have settled status and whose access to benefits is guaranteed by the Brexit deal.<\/p>\n A Labour source said: \u201cFarage\u2019s not even half-baked announcement has already fallen apart. Yet again, Reform have no credible plan and their only answer is \u2018don\u2019t know\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said: \u201cThousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain. They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city. Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nigel Farage has pledged to abolish what he called the \u201cgrossly unfair\u201d main route for immigrants to gain British citizenship, threatening tens of thousands of people legally living in the UK with deportation unless they meet strict rules. The Reform UK leader said his plans would target the \u201cBoriswave\u201d \u2013 the wave of legal immigrants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[4280,3132,6292,2957,2408,838,3665,736,6651,1152,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-23084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-deportation","9":"tag-farage","10":"tag-indefinite","11":"tag-leave","12":"tag-placing","13":"tag-reform","14":"tag-remain","15":"tag-risk","16":"tag-scrap","17":"tag-thousands","18":"tag-vows"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}