Britain’s opposition Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has announced plans to deport 150,000 illegal immigrants annually if her party returns to power, promising to create a removals force modelled on the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
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She unveiled the proposals on Sunday at the opening of her party’s annual conference, a gathering seen as crucial for her leadership as the Conservatives languish at around 16 per cent in opinion polls.
The plans include using facial recognition technology to track undocumented immigrants, overhauling the asylum system, and withdrawing Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights, Ms. Badenoch said.
“The fact is, there are too many people in our country who should not be here,” Ms. Badenoch told the BBC. “They don’t belong here, they are committing crimes, they are hurting people.”
Ms. Badenoch said the removals force would have a budget of 1.6 billion British pounds, approximately $2.15 billion, to be funded by cutting costs for accommodating refugee claimants. She also proposed restricting asylum criteria and abolishing immigration tribunals that hear challenges to failed asylum claims.
The Conservative leader promised that no one opposing withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights would be allowed to run as a Conservative candidate. The convention was drafted decades ago to safeguard the rights of refugees and others.
When pressed during her BBC interview about how and where she would deport 150,000 people annually, Ms. Badenoch was vague.
“I’m tired of us asking all of these irrelevant questions about where should they go,” she said. “They will go back to where they should do or another country, but they should not be here.”
She added: “We cannot have a situation where we cannot deport people, and say, ‘Well, we don’t know where they will go, so they can stay here.'”
The announcement reflects a hardening stance on migration in Britain, where political debate has been influenced by Nigel Farage, leader of the populist anti-immigration party Reform U.K., and by President Trump’s policies.
Reform U.K. now leads in opinion polls, with Mr. Farage campaigning against the arrival of thousands of migrants crossing the English Channel on small boats and promising to remove up to 600,000 undocumented immigrants.
The Trump administration claims to have carried out 400,000 deportations since January, though ICE’s aggressive tactics have drawn widespread criticism, with American citizens among those arrested.
Ms. Badenoch met President Trump during his visit to Britain last month and later praised him on social media for delivering a speech that “reminded people about all the things that put the ‘Great’ in Great Britain!”
Mr. Trump made headlines during his UK visit by suggesting the Labour government could use its military to stop illegal migration.
The centre-left Labour government, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has responded to the shifting political landscape by toughening its stance on immigration and taking a hard line on pro-Palestinian protests.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood promised on Sunday to give the police more powers to curb pro-Palestinian protests following an attack on a Manchester synagogue last week that killed three people.
Mr. Starmer has negotiated an agreement with the French government to return some migrants arriving in Britain, but only a handful have been sent back to France so far.
The Conservatives face difficulties because legal immigration into Britain surged under the previous government, to which Ms. Badenoch belonged, before her party was swept from power in 2024.
Many analysts believe Ms. Badenoch could face a leadership challenge by next summer if she fails to improve her party’s polling numbers. The next general election could be as far off as 2029, making Ms. Badenoch unlikely to reach Downing Street soon.
In a statement, the Labour Party said Ms. Badenoch “couldn’t answer the most basic questions about the policies she’s supposedly spent months thinking about,” adding: “It’s the same old Tory Party making the same old mistakes — and the public shouldn’t and won’t forgive them.”
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