REFORM UK would seek to introduce hundreds of supporters into the House of Lords if peers resisted attempts to “detain and deport” migrants, Zia Yusuf has said.
Nigel Farage’s pick for Home Secretary – who is not currently an MP – said the party is currently looking at recruiting supporters who could be appointed to the unelected second House.
Reform does not currently have any peers in the Lords, and in order to hold a majority, would need to appoint around 900 or so people.
Politico reports that Yusuf said his “baseline assumption” is that the civil service will be “hostile” to Reform’s immigration policies.
READ MORE: More than 100 jobs at risk at Alexander Dennis's Scottish site
Yusuf has called for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) style removals to deport 600,000 people from the UK over five years.
“Nigel’s not in any doubt that if I go into the Home Office as home secretary and there’re staff there who are going to start sabotaging what we’re doing or unwilling to get with the program or unwilling to embark on a mass deportation program they won’t be in the Home Office for very long,” he told Politico.
“My baseline assumption is that every unelected body, if we win the general election and a majority, every unelected body in the country will be hostile to us,” he added.
“We’re not gonna get into any wars of our own choice but we have to be prepared.”
Yusuf argues that peers put in place “by Tony Blair, by Gordon Brown” are “generally not going to be in favour of most of things”.
He added: “I think most of them would recoil at the idea of detaining and deporting people who are in this country illegally. Should that be the case, then packing the Lords is on the table as an option.”
When it was put to Yusuf that this would require finding hundreds and hundreds of peers, he told Politico: “Yep. I think we would have every right to do that so long as we have been very honest with the British people about what we’re planning on doing.
“And if we’ve won a mandate from the electorate, how dare any peer stand in the way and try and stop us delivering for the British people?”
When Politico pointed out that this could involve appointing 900 peers, Yusuf said: “It’d be a lot. We’re working on recruiting those people as we speak.”
READ MORE: 'This is Apartheid': Zack Polanski leads condemnation of Israel death penalty law
Yusuf argued that “nobody’s out of scope” when it comes to deportations, if Reform UK wins the next General Election.
Migrants who have legally lived and worked in the UK for years could see themselves deported if Reform scraps permanent settled status.
He has also said that Reform would take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Share