‘I’ll deport 750,000 unlawful migrants’: Kemi Badenoch vows to arrange Trump-style Removals Force to seal Britain’s porous borders

A US-style ‘Removals Force’ would be set up to hunt down and deport more than 750,000 migrants if the Tories win power, the party announced last night.

The new Trumpian unit is the most eye-catching measure in Kemi Badenoch’s Borders Plan, which the Tory leader hopes will revive her flagging political fortunes as she arrives in Manchester for a crunch Conservative party conference.

The seven-point plan is designed to maximise the new freedoms Ms Badenoch says will result from leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) –announced yesterday after a long, intense debate in the party. 

Robert Jenrick, the frontrunner to succeed Ms Badenoch, led the calls to quit the treaty – which has been used by lawyers to thwart deportations – during last year’s Tory leadership contest.

At the time, Ms Badenoch rejected the idea, saying: ‘Leaving the ECHR is not a silver bullet. We need to rewire the whole system from end to end. It’s broken. Easy answers today just mean bigger problems tomorrow.’

But with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK leading the Conservatives by a margin of two to one in the polls, the party has been left with little option but to match Mr Farage’s muscular approach to the issue.

The Removals Force is modelled on America’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), set up in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks to track down illegal immigrants.

President Trump used his One Big Beautiful Bill Act this year to turn it into the largest and best-funded federal law enforcement agency in the country’s history.

A US-style ‘Removals Force’ would be set up to hunt down and deport more than 750,000 migrants if the Tories win power, the party announced last night. Pictured: Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch 

The new Trumpian unit is the most eye-catching measure in Kemi Badenoch ’s Borders Plan, which the Tory leader hopes will revive her flagging political fortunes. Pictured: Badenoch greeting supporters waving Union Jacks as she arrives into Manchester for a crunch Conservative party conference

The Tory plan also includes a ban on asylum claims for illegal entrants; an end to legal aid and Judicial Review for immigration cases; repeal of the Human Rights Act; a pledge to deport all illegal arrivals and all foreign criminals within a week; new returns agreements with other countries; and ‘support for allies’ to prevent illegal entry to Europe.

Under the plan, Britain would also quit the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (ECAT) – which will anger former prime minister Theresa May who has argued it is essential to help combat the problem.

However, Ms Badenoch’s allies say the convention is used too frequently as a legal device to thwart deportations.

Announcing the measures last night, Ms Badenoch – who used an interview to dismiss Mr Farage as offering ‘a pastiche’ of Tory values – said: ‘We must tackle the scourge of illegal immigration into Britain and secure our borders.

‘That is why the Conservatives are setting out a serious and comprehensive new plan to end this crisis. The next Conservative Government will withdraw from the ECHR and ECAT, create a new Removals Force to deport all illegal arrivals and end the legal merry-go-round of tribunals and appeals.

‘We will deal with those who have already arrived, create a strong deterrent to those who try and come, and tackle swiftly any who still manage to cross the Channel.’ She added: ‘Labour offer failed gimmicks like “one thousand in, one out” with France. Reform have nothing but announcements that fall apart on arrival.

‘Our stronger borders plan is serious and credible and backed by comprehensive legal analysis.

‘That’s the difference the next Conservative Government will deliver.’

Party strategists say that banning asylum and other protection claims for illegal entrants will send ‘a clear signal’ that no one who has entered illegally can ever obtain asylum, creating the same ‘deterrent effect’ as that achieved by President Trump

Party strategists say that banning asylum and other protection claims for illegal entrants will send ‘a clear signal’ that no one who has entered illegally can ever obtain asylum, creating the same ‘deterrent effect’ as that achieved by President Trump.

The Removals Force would replace immigration enforcement teams in the Home Office, with funding doubled from £800million a year to £1.6billion.

Its target will be to increase the number of removals from 34,000 to 150,000 a year, building to a total of at least 750,000 removals over the course of a Parliament.

It would be funded from the closure of asylum hotels and cuts to the £4.76billion annual cost of the asylum system.

Domestic modern slavery laws will be amended to stop them being abused by human rights lawyers – though officials insist they would ‘still protect genuine victims and criminalise trafficking’.

Domestic legislation would be amended to raise the threshold for claims covered by the Refugee Convention, with Parliament interpreting the convention rather than the courts.

And the UK would limit visa rights and withdraw aid for countries that will not agree to take back their nationals – as the US has done with countries in Latin America.

Dismissing comparisons with Reform, a Tory source said that Mr Farage offered ‘nothing but a hastily cobbled together series of press releases with zero real plans to deliver – his policies fall apart at the first scrutiny’.

By comparison, the source said, ‘we have spent our time in opposition forensically analysing every element of our immigration system and produced a serious and deliverable policy that will make the legal and structural reforms necessary to tackle this crisis’.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Paymaster General and Minister for EU Relations, said: ‘Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch offer the same isolationist fantasy: withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and pretend the problem goes away.

‘It’s the fake fix of mediocre politicians – waving wild decisions as genius because they’ve run out of ideas, are out of options and out of their depth. Both the Tories and Reform have all but admitted they can’t handle the complexity of global migration.

‘Badenoch talks tough but seems incapable of negotiating real reform with our allies. Farage can’t bring himself to have any relationship with Europe.’