The paper says that James Evans, a candidate for Reform, has now become the first party figure to brand comments by key Reform supporter, Arron Banks as racist after the Brexit bankroller prompted a furious reaction from opponents after writing "Welsh lad?" in response to a clip posted on X featuring a Black activist campaigning for Plaid Cymru on Monday.
This row though pales in comparison to the new policy announced by Reform yesterday. The party has announced a plan to site migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas.
The proposal to prioritise places that vote for Green councils or MPs when it sets up detention centres for migrants facing deportation has been denounced as “abhorrent” from opponents across the political spectrum.
Reform says it would deport “all illegal migrants” and, to make this possible, it has announced plans for deportation centres holding up to 24,000 people.
The Guardian reports that in a post on social media, Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, said that these would be located in Green-voting areas. He explained:
So here’s our promise:
A Reform government will not put any migrant detention facilities in any constituency with a Reform MP.
Nor will we put them where Reform controls the council.
And of the remaining areas, we will prioritise Green controlled parliamentary constituencies and Green controlled councils to locate the detention centres.
Put simply, if you vote in a Reform council or Reform MP, we guarantee you won’t have a detention centre near you.
If you vote Green, there’s a good chance you will.
This is an important exercise in democratic consent, not just for our mass deportation policy, but for where the detention centres are placed.
Given @ZackPolanski openly advocates for open borders, I look forward to their warm embrace of this policy.
Yusuf also promoted the slogan “Vote Green, Get Illegals” on his post.
In an interview with Sky News, Yusuf said that Reform accepted that deportating migrants on the scale proposed by his party would be unprecedented for the UK, although he said it had been done in other countries. He said this policy was about ensuring there was “democratic consent” for the policy.
Responding to the announcement, Mothin Ali, the Green party’s co-deputy leader, said:
Reform keep making abhorrent announcements to distract voters from they fact they want to privatise the NHS. Greens are focused on building council housing, fixing our public services and bringing down the cost of living.
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said:
This grotesque policy reveals Reform’s contempt for all voters – including their own. Threatening to punish places where people don’t vote your way is a betrayal of basic democratic principles. Nigel Farage has sunk to a new low: he is clearly more interested in stoking division and anger than in serving the whole country.
The promotion of a potentially illegal policy in this way is blatant race-baiting.
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