NIGEL Farage has vowed to make Britain a “normal country” again as he threatened to slap tariffs and flight bans on countries not taking back illegal migrants.
The Reform leader said the country had been “invaded” as 200,000 people have entered Britain since 2020.
Mr Farage announced he would also scrap the asylum backlog and deport 90,000 people on the list with appeal cases still to be heard.
He claimed he was putting forward “nothing radical or crazy” but a plan to secure Britain’s borders.
Mr Farage said: “We want to get back to being a normal country, a country that puts national security at the top of the agenda, a country that does everything it can to protect its own citizens, and a country that detains and deports people that come illegally, as virtually every other country in the world does, and indeed, as we used to do.”
The Reform leader did his press conference in front of a replica small boat.
He said: “Can we please stop calling this a small boats crisis? It is not a small boats crisis. Have a look at this behind me: this is a replica size of the boat carrying 230 people that recently crossed the English Channel.”
“It is not a small boats crisis, and it doesn’t matter how much money we give to France.”
Pakistan was also threatened with a series of escalations and sanctions if it failed to accept foreign nationals who had committed crimes.
He warned a Reform government would slap visa bans on the country if it failed to work with them.
Mr Farage added: “I’m sorry, Pakistan, but you need to take back that man now living freely in the north-west of England, who was at the heart of one of the most appalling, or they call them grooming gangs, but I think rape gangs, frankly, would be more appropriate.
“If that means, in the case of Pakistan, that we have to bring in visa bans, we’ll do so. If it means threatening Pakistani nationals’ assets in London, we will do so.
“If it means introducing flight bans. We will do so. And in extremis, we’d even look at tariffs.”
Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Syria were also picked out as potential targets for visa bans.
Mr Farage said he was right to call the crisis an “invasion” six years ago when he first raised the issue.