Reform announced Goodwin as honorary president of Students4Reform at its launch on Monday.

In an interview with Michael Gove, editor of The Spectator, the GB News presenter said that being English is “an ethnicity that is deeply rooted in a people that can trace their roots back over generations”.

Goodwin said “it is a different identity from Britishness” and that someone could identify as British, but not be English. 

The day after a man carried out a knife attack on people travelling on Doncaster-London train, Goodwin said “mass uncontrolled immigration” was to blame. 

Another social media user challenged his comments, pointing out that Anthony Williams, who was charged, and another black man who was arrested and later released, were both born in the UK.

Goodwin responded: “So were all of the 7/7 bombers. It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody ‘British’.” 

In a Daily Telegraph article published in June, Goodwin he also claimed that “white British people will be a minority in 40 years”, presenting the increase in the number of “Black British” or “Asian British” people as a problem.

Goodwin maintains that his comments were not racist.

Lois Perry, who briefly served as a former leader of UKIP and is the Director of Heartland UK/Europe was also at the launch.

The Heartland Institute is a US-based free market think tank known for denying scientific evidence on climate change. It has close ties to the Trump administration.

Callum Clafferty, Co-Chair of Young Greens, said: “Not only do Reform not trust their young members to lead themselves, they have appointed someone who has made blatantly racist comments about British people and asylum seekers.

“That is not where young people are. Young people want hope, unity and bold action not division and hate. Rather than platforming racists, Reform should start actually listening to young people’s priorities.”

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “When Sarah Pochin made grotesque racist remarks, Nigel Farage did nothing. Now he’s given a senior role in Reform to someone with equally unpleasant views on race.

“Nigel Farage must urgently make clear that this type of language is completely unacceptable and has no place in his party.

“If Farage promotes people with these racist views within Reform without taking action, it’s yet more evidence that he’s more interested in creating division and grievance than in patriotism.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Tice told right-wing newspaper The Telegraph that Reform would abolish the tax, claiming it is causing entrepreneurs to “flee Britain”.

The right-wing newspaper says that it is campaigning for inheritance tax to be abolished.

Multi-millionaire Reform leader Nigel Farage already mooted the idea in a speech to farmers in February. In the speech, he called for Labour’s tax on family farms to be scrapped and inheritance tax to be fully abolished.

Inheritance tax is paid on estates worth over £325,000, with the 40% tax only applying to wealth above this threshold. 

Tax Justice UK pointed out that less than one in 20 people are wealthy enough to pay inheritance tax.

Caitlin Boswell, Head of Advocacy and Policy at Tax Justice UK told Left Foot Forward:  “At a time of declining living standards, with millions struggling to make ends meet, people are looking for politicians to offer up hope and solutions. Reform’s proposal to scrap inheritance tax will not only take away vital funding from our schools, hospitals and communities when they most need it, but give some of the wealthiest people in the country a tax break. 

“People are looking for help to pay their energy bills, childcare or get affordable housing. Instead of offering real solutions, Reform is promising to rig the tax system further for a small minority of the country. 

“When less than 1 in 20 even pay any form of inheritance tax, all this will do is help the richest pass on their fortunes without paying a penny back into the system.” 

Boswell said that rather than scrapping inheritance tax, it should be reformed.

“A serious proposal would reform inheritance tax so that the super-rich can no longer get away with not paying as much as they should, so there’s more money for the things that matter to us most,” she said.

Research by the think tank Demo in 2023 found that three-quarters of people from all political backgrounds supported taxing inheritance. 

Asked whether the government should scrap inheritance tax or use the money for public services, 63% said it should fund public services, compared with just 14% who said it should be abolished. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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It was an introduction to what awaited in the main hall. Members cheering loudly at Reform politicians saying for the nth time that they would “detain and deport” migrants. A woman next to me shouted “Fabulous! Perfect!” as Reform’s new head of policy Zia Yusuf said the party would take UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights and set up a UK deportation command. “Send them back home,” she cried.

Another older member I spoke with, who had previously been a Ukip member, said “We need to look after our own” and said that he doesn’t want “migrants gone” but he supports Reform’s deportation plans.

He said he had always been keen for the UK to get out of single market (European Economic Area), but that leaving the EU hasn’t worked. “We haven’t made the right opportunities out of it,” he said, “we’re still restricted by rules and regulations.”

On asylum seekers, he said “They’re not asylum seekers, they’re illegal immigrants, they’ve come here from France!”.

I clarified they’re claiming asylum in the UK and that post-Brexit, the UK no longer has agreements with the EU to return them to France. He dismissed this, insisting we still need to send them back.

There was a palpable sense at the conference that Reform supporters have convinced themselves that British people no longer have any rights. Never mind the fact that Reform UK wants to scrap human rights legislation including the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect our fundamental freedoms.

The ECHR limits state power by holding governments accountable for abuses of citizens’ human rights. It safeguards privacy at home and family life, freedom of expression, and the right to a fair trial, protections that could be destroyed if Reform succeeds in dismantling these laws.

Not only that, but while members talk about the need for the government “to look out for own”, Farage has today announced that Reform would make “serious cuts” to the welfare budget if elected in 2029. So much for Reform being “for the British people”.

The party’s is equally obsessed with the Labour government’s supposed collapse. They were jubiliant at Keir Starmer’s reshuffle and Angela Rayner’s resignation. The hall booed when Farage reminded them that the next election wasn’t until 2029, though he suggested Labour might only last until 2027.

This is a man who warned of “Brexit betrayal” earlier this year when Keir Starmer tried to establish a better post-Brexit relationship with the EU – the same Brexit that has already cost the UK economy £140 billion.

Now, Farage appears intent on trying to manufacture a crisis and force Labour into an early election. Ultimately, because he wants to grab power. At one point, Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyn’s bizarrely asked members to stand up and said: “Repeat after me: ‘Nigel will be prime minister'”.

GB News and TalkTV’s Jeremy Kyle were (unsurprisingly) out in force at Reform’s conference. Serena Barker-Singh, a reporter from Sky News, a channel which has previously been criticised for its lack of balance when reporting on Reform UK, was on one of its panels. It now falls to the rest of the press to expose Reform and Farage’s prejudiced narratives and lack of policies so the public sees the party for what it is really is.

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Finch was quick to distance himself from Robinson, but said he still supported the flag campaign organised by Andrew Currien (aka Andy Saxon), a former member of Robinson’s security team.

He said people who feel intimidated by the flags and their links to anti-migrant rhetoric, “need to grow up”.

He described the Bell Hotel protests in Epping as “peaceful” despite arrests on suspicion of violent disorder.

At a recent Reform press conference, Finch also suggested a link between asylum seekers, HMOs, and crime, claiming: “So many people are coming over that are unvetted.”

When asked whether it is racist to imply that all asylum seekers commit crimes based on the actions of a few, Finch rejected the suggestion.

Reform in Warwickshire has recently passed a policy to hire political assistants for the three main political parties on the council, which will cost between £150,000 and £190,000 per year.

Finch said there had been “media misinformation” about the cost of the political assistants. He said a Reform political assistant would cost £30,000 – £50,000 a year, and that they are needed because “council officers are against us [Reform]”.

This is due to chief executive of Warwickshire County Council, Monica Fogarty, refusing to remove the pride flag from the County Hall building.

Despite the cost of the political assistants, he claimed this doesn’t contradict Reform’s pledge to drive efficiency savings at the local elections.

Asking how he will pay for the political assistants, he says: “This is what we don’t know yet. We’ll have to make cuts, we’ll have to make savings on diversity, equality and inclusion and net zero.”

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Earlier this week, Nigel Farage unveiled Reform’s “Operation Restoring Justice” – a “five year
emergency programme” if the party gets into office, which includes leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, repealing the Human Rights Act and disapplying the Refugee Convention.

They propose to carry out mass deportations of people seeking asylum by making it impossible for people who enter the country irregularly to get asylum, introducing a legal duty to remove anybody who comes irregularly, and to detain any migrants in the UK who don’t have leave to remain.

The plans are a fundamental attack on the right to safety – and we’ve seen them before. Many of the measures in the so-called “emergency programme” echo the Conservative government’s Illegal Migration Act. That piece of legislation similarly attempted to introduce what amounted to an asylum ban, undermining the very principle of protection in the UK. And both hinge on the idea that irregular entry to the UK somehow negates someone’s need for protection, ignoring the fact that there is virtually no way to enter the UK by regular means.

Nobody wants to make a dangerous journey to the UK, but people don’t have any other choice because this government has actually shut down safe routes to the UK rather than introduce any new ones. While governments or political parties talk of stopping the boats or smashing the gangs, they have failed to take the steps that would mean people would not be forced to use smugglers: safe routes.

People fleeing war and persecution do what they have to do to keep themselves and
their families safe, and none of these measures will stop that basic human instinct. It’s what we all would do if faced with the risk of death, torture, or imprisonment for our political, religious or other identities.

At Young Roots, we work with young people who have had to leave everything behind in order to be safe. While Farage has said in later interviews that Reform does not plan to deport women and children, his measures would mean ripping families apart and would directly threaten the majority of the young people we support – young men who are mostly here without their families, alone for the first time in their lives. Young men also need to be safe, and to be able to rebuild their lives and look to the future.

The young people we work with have hopes and dreams like the rest of us. As one young person told us, “What you want is a stable place to feel safe, where I can live without being scared, so I can do the basic things – study, work, live my life without stress and without being scared I will be harmed.

Policies like those proposed earlier this week, and all the anti-immigration rhetoric that goes along with them, make young people feel extremely unsafe when they have already had their childhoods and youth taken away by fear.

We all deserve to feel safe – and we must give no ground to policies that use human beings as political pawns. What would we want for ourselves and our families if we had flee for our lives? Surely the very opposite of the inhuman and cruel plans making the headlines these days: welcome, humanity, community and safety. Let’s be vocal about that instead.

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Earlier this week, Nigel Farage made shocking comments that, if in power, Reform UK would detain and deport women and children who are seeking safety in the UK. Not even 24 hours later, Farage appeared to row back on this, stating, “we’re not even discussing women and children at this stage … I didn’t say exempt forever, but at this stage it is not part of our plan for the next five years.” But the damage is already done.

His speech exposed once again the cruelty at the heart of anti-refugee politics in the UK: a disturbing willingness by those in power to sacrifice the dignity and humanity of people seeking safety here to score political points.

At Women for Refugee Women, we know what this means in practice. Every day, we support women who have fled war, persecution and gender-based violence, including rape, domestic violence, forced marriage and female genital cutting. Many arrive in the UK with nothing but hope for a better life, one where they will finally be safe. Instead, they are too often met with hostility, disbelief, forced destitution, and for some, detention.

The harms of immigration detention

Our research of over a decade has consistently revealed the devastating harm caused by immigration detention: anxiety, depression, hopelessness, panic attacks and even suicidal thoughts and actions.

One woman, Voke, shared, “I felt like my life had been taken away from me. I couldn’t see the point of my life anymore, so I tried to kill myself.”  For those who are detained like Voke, this traumatic experience can last for days, weeks, months, or even years.

The UK remains the only country in Europe without a time limit on immigration detention, compounding the pain it causes. The UK’s use of detention is a hostile and cruel anomaly. For an MP to talk so flippantly about detaining and deporting women and children without any acknowledgement of this reality is not only callous – it is wilfully blind to the human cost of such policies.

The veil of ‘women’s safety’

Farage and others like him often invoke ‘women’s safety’ as a justification for their anti-immigration stance, reframing vital conversations about violence against women and girls (VAWG) as an issue primarily perpetrated by a stranger – most often painted as a man who is seeking asylum in the UK. This is harmful to us all.

It is an uncomfortable reality that the majority of violence against women and girls is committed by someone known to them: their partner, ex-partner, friend, relative, colleague, or neighbour. The UK is facing a devastating surge in domestic abuse and sexual violence – nearly one in three women experience domestic abuse, sexual offences are at a record high, and one woman is murdered in the UK by a partner or ex-partner every four days. It is therefore unconscionable that those with a public platform, like Farage, are distorting the reality of VAWG into divisive, harmful narratives.

Detention and deportation don’t make women and girls safer

But let us be clear: there is nothing about locking people up in immigration detention – particularly women and children – or forcibly removing them from the UK that makes women and girls safer. In fact, it is precisely this rhetoric that harms them. Farage’s plans to detain and deport “absolutely anyone” would undoubtedly force women and children seeking safety into further harm, abuse or violence – whether that’s back into the hands of traffickers, abusers or oppressive regimes.

Hiding behind the veil of ‘women’s safety’ to peddle anti-migrant rhetoric allows perpetrators of VAWG to hide behind scapegoats and lies and it impedes access to justice for survivors who desperately need it. To use women’s lives as a political prop while simultaneously advocating for politics that would harm them is hypocrisy at its ugliest.

‘A better, safer life for us all’

The UK has a proud history of offering sanctuary to those in need. That history is being corroded by those who seek to weaponise VAWG and scapegoat people seeking safety for political gain. This must stop. 

We call on all political leaders to reject this dangerous politics of fear and division and to instead invest in building an asylum system rooted in compassion and justice. This means listening to the voices and experiences of people seeking safety here, ensuring every individual’s asylum claim is assessed in a timely and fair manner, and ensuring that those who gain refugee status in the UK are supported to heal and to rebuild their lives. 

The public deserves better than fearmongering dressed up as concern.

People who are fleeing unimaginable trauma who are seeking safety here deserve better than hostile scapegoating and othering.

There is an alternative: a better, safer life for us all.

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Beyond that, the plan is unworkable. You only need to think back to the Tories’ failed inhumane Rwanda scheme, which cost the taxpayer £700 million and did not result in a single deportation, to see just how impractical these proposals are. As with the Tories, Reform could throw billions of taxpayer’s money at their cruel plan, but it wouldn’t work. 

Here’s why:

1. Deportations to Rwanda, Albania, Afghanistan, and Eritrea

Farage has said he would deport asylum seekers to third countries and pay governments to take their own citizens back. Reform has boasted that Rwanda and Afghanistan are open to making deals with them. 

In reality, Rwanda would only consider reviving the agreement they previously brokered with Tories if Britain pays £50 million in unsettled debt from the failed Rwanda scheme. 

In May, Albania’s socialist prime minister, Edi Rama, ruled out providing ‘return hubs’ for asylum seekers the UK wants to deport. 

Rwanda was effectively blocked by the courts due to human rights concerns. Sure, Farage would scrap several human rights laws to get around this, but courts could still use common law to block deportations. Particularly to countries with repressive regimes like Iran and Afghanistan.

2. The Ascension Island fantasy

Right-wingers are obsessed with this fantasy of sending refugees to this very remote British Overseas Territory for processing. Priti Patel looked at this policy when she was home secretary back in 2020. The Home Office and Foreign Office decided it was unworkable. The island is 4000 miles away, you can only get there by plane and it doesn’t have a runway capable of handling large planes. Rishi Sunak dug the policy out again in 2023, as a backup plan in case the Rwanda plan didn’t work (funny, it’s as though they knew it wouldn’t work). The Ascension Island plan, like the Rwanda scheme, never happened. See the pattern here?

3. Costings

The Reform leader said the plan would cost £10 billion over five years, which is, by the way, far less than what ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe estimated in April. Lowe said his research with the Centre for Migration Control indicated that a mass deportation policy would cost £47 billion over five years. 

Farage’s comment that his policy could “save tens and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds” is an indication of just how sketchy Reform’s math is on this. Which is it? Where are Reform’s numbers on this?

4. Detention centres

As of June 2024, there were about 2,200 spaces in detention centres, including 1,622 in use, 530 spaces available, plus another 1,000 that were not yet operational and 1,200 possible detention centre spaces.

Reform wants to increase detention facilities to 24,000 spaces. A BBC estimate has indicated that creating this number of spaces would cost around £12bn. Reform’s plan includes converting RAF bases into detention centres, yet Farage couldn’t name a single RAF base he’d turn into a detention centre. 

Remember how the RAF Scampton site, which the Tories wanted to use for ‘non-detained’ asylum accommodation, was closed before it opened? How Napier Barracks, which is soon to close, was called “unfit for habitation”? And how there was legionella on board the Bibby Stockholm? The list goes on. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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At the event, Farage was asked a question about where he wanted to see asylum seekers deported to. In response, Farage was forthright, saying: “Sorry. I’ve had enough of this. If you come from Afghanistan, you go back to Afghanistan. End of.

“This idea, we can’t send people to certain countries, all the false claims that people make about their own personal live – I’m sorry. We’re done. We’re done. We’ve had enough.”

So far, so Farage. Except, of course, this line is a little different to what Farage and Reform have previously been calling for.

Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, pointed out that Farage has previously said that asylum seekers crossing the English Channel on small boats should be returned to France.

Katwala posted on Bluesky to say: “Nigel Farage would simply send Afghan asylum seekers back to Afghanistan. Has he now forgotten that his current policy (bluff) is that he can simply return asylum seekers in boats to France, without permission

“Perhaps Reform are slowly realising that “just take boats back to France” [without permission or a deal to do so] is silly and incredible, even if this new alternative [just send them back to Afghanistan] is no more serious”.

Farage can’t be expected to remember where he wants to deport people to, can he?

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development

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Speaking on the news, Reform’s chair David Bull said: “She brings a wealth of experience with her and will be a crucial part in developing the party’s social care policy as we look to build our policy platform ahead of the next general election”.

Marie Morris was a controversial figure during her time in the Conservative Party. In 2017, she had the Tory whip suspended after using the n-word during a debate on Brexit. She referred to leaving the EU without a deal as the “real [n-word] in the woodpile”.

She later apologised for the remarks, saying: “The comment was totally unintentional. I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused.”

She later had the whip restored and was later selected to contest her seat in the 2019 and 2024 general elections.

Marie Morris’ past has already been brought by other political figures. Deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats Daisy Cooper said: “The mask has slipped, exposing Farage’s hollow claims of dragging his party into the mainstream. That Reform is embracing someone who has used such abhorrent language speaks volumes: they are the company they keep.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with “much regret”.

Cllr Howard said: “This has been a very difficult decision to take.

“The role of leader is an extremely demanding role and regretfully my health challenges now prevent me from carrying out the role to the level and standard that I would wish.”

In May, Reform became the largest party in Warwickshire, forming a minority administration.

Howard’s current deputy, George Finch, will serve as interim leader until the council confirms a new leader in due course.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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