Nigel Farage rolls back on vow to deport all small-boat arrivals to the UK

Reform leader tells event in Scotland deporting women and children is not part of his party’s plans for the next five years

Nigel Farage has rolled back on his pledge to deport “absolutely anyone” arriving in the UK on small boats just 24 hours after making it at a combative press conference in Oxford that led to accusations of ugly and destructive rhetoric.

Farage announced plans to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in the first five years of a Reform government and to pay despotic regimes such as the Taliban to take them back. He also said: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival, will be detained.”