Greens compare Reform UK's detention centre pledge to racist 1960s Tory campaign slogan
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Imran Mulla
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Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:43
Nigel Farage’s party proposed to put detention centres housing illegal migrants in Green-voting areas
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (R) attends a press conference with the party's home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, in London on 18 November 2025 (AFP)
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Nigel Farage's Reform UK has been criticised for promising to build detention centres for illegal migrants in areas that vote for the Green Party if it enters government at the next general election.
A Green Party source told Middle East Eye the pledge was "reminiscent" of racist Conservative Party campaigning in the 1960s.
Reform UK has previously promised to deport 600,000 illegal migrants and to build new detention centres holding up to 24,000 people.
The party's home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, announced on Sunday that 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."
Yusuf added: "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."
In response, a Green Party source told Middle East Eye: "The shine is coming off Nigel Farage. He is desperate and his own voters are starting to see him for the establishment stooge he is. This policy is reminiscent of the Peter Griffiths posters of 1964."
Peter Griffiths was a Conservative politician who notoriously circulated racist flyers in Smethwick in the West Midlands during the 1964 election campaign saying: "If you want a n----r for a neighbour, vote Labour."
'New departure for UK politics'
Reform UK's pledge has also faced criticism from sections of the British right.
The Times columnist Fraser Nelson remarked that the policy announcement marks a "new departure for UK politics: rejecting the idea of PM-for-all and instead a new partisan style".
Simon Clarke, the director of right-wing think tank UK Onward, said: "We need to stop illegal immigration, but this is abhorrent from Reform.
"Zia is proposing the siting of detention centres expressly as a form of political punishment for people and places that don’t vote Reform - not just Green, but presumably Conservative, Liberal and Labour too."
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Clarke added: "It would almost certainly be deemed an abuse of ministerial power for political purposes, and as such would likely be stuck down in court before ever being implemented, wasting millions for the taxpayer without detaining anyone."
Yusuf said on Sunday that Reform would pass a new law ensuring legal challenges could not stop the building of detention centres.
The legislation would compel the government to build detention centres in Green-supporting areas.
He pointed to an internal Green policy document saying the party “wants to see a world without borders” as a justification for putting detention centres in Green-supporting areas.
Yusuf's announcement comes days before the 7 May local elections, at which both Reform and the Greens hope to make major gains.
"It is now clear that the failed era of the Tory-Labour uniparty is over," Yusuf said.
"The forthcoming elections are a battle for the soul of Britain between Reform and the Greens."
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