// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Reform would suspend asylum system for parliamentary term if in government
One of Reform UK's pledges for its first 100 days in power would be stopping small boat crossings, Nigel Farage has said
Reform UK has announced plans to close down the UK's asylum system for a full parliamentary term if it were to enter government.
The party said all new asylum applications would be rejected and existing applications voided, with all claimants marked for deportation, which Reform said would effectively suspend the asylum system.
Reform would scrap the asylum tribunal system, which hears asylum appeal cases, and claimants in more than 90,000 outstanding appeals would be deported.
It said no grants of humanitarian protection or refugee status would be made.
Labour chairperson Bridget Phillipson called the proposals a "clear sign of desperation and weakness".
"Running away from basic decency by entirely abandoning those escaping war and persecution might look to Reform like a way of winning a bidding war with other parties on the right, but the vast majority of British people will reject it as an assault on our common values," she said.
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the proposals "largely copy" his party's policies, arguing: "Only the Conservatives have a serious and credible plan to fix our borders."
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said: "Reform and the Conservatives were the architects of the failed asylum system and now they will exploit it at every opportunity - including Farage's latest announcement."
Reform said it would pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention to prevent legal challenges to its plans.