Zia Yusuf unveils Reform’s ‘beyond disturbing’ plan to put migrant detention centres in areas that vote Green
'Threatening to punish places where people don’t vote your way is a betrayal of basic democratic principles.'
Reform has sparked a backlash ahead of the local elections after revealing its “abhorrent” plans to place huge migrant detention centres in areas that don’t support the far-right party.
Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, is under fire after he announced on Sunday that tens of thousands of migrants would be held in detention centres in areas with Green MPs and Green councils.
In the video, Yusuf said: “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. This is an important exercise in democratic consent, not just for our mass deportation policy, but for where the detention centres are placed.
“Given Zack Polanski openly advocates for open borders, I look forward to their warm embrace of this policy.”
Labour’s chair Anna Turley called the plans “grotesque” and said punishing places where people don’t vote for Reform is a “betrayal of basic democratic principles”.
Meanwhile, the Greens called the plans “abhorrent” and a former senior Tory minister said the proposals would likely be considered “an abuse of ministerial power for political purposes”.
In a statement issued yesterday, Turley said: “This grotesque policy reveals Reform’s contempt for all voters – including their own.
“Threatening to punish places where people don’t vote your way is a betrayal of basic democratic principles. Nigel Farage has sunk to a new low: he is clearly more interested in stoking division and anger than in serving the whole country.”
A Green Party spokesperson told the HuffPost: “Reform keep making abhorrent announcements in attempts to distract voters from the fact they want to privatise our NHS, roll back worker’s rights and hand out tax breaks to their billionaire backers.
“Farage, the establishment stooge, filled his pockets with a secret £5m donation and then puts forward this disgusting idea as if it is a serious policy.”
Another party source told the publication: “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.”
Former senior Tory MP Simon Clarke, who served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “Zia is proposing the siting of detention centres expressly as a form of political punishment for people and places that don’t vote Reform.”
Clarke added: “It would almost certainly be deemed an abuse of ministerial power for political purposes.”
In a post on Bluesky, writer Otto English, wrote: “Vote Reform. Or we will house *dangerous migrant centres* in your village. And if you vote Green, it will be even worse for you.
“It’s beyond disturbing. The chill wind of threat, thuggery and menace of a kind never before seen in Britain.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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