Nigel Farage finally unveils how Reform UK plans to slash UK net migration to zero

Nigel Farage has revealed his pledge to slash net migration to zero would involve a one in, one out policy.

The Reform leader made the claim as he set out how he would get to his flagship promise to get net migration down to zero.

The Brexit architect who sent shockwaves through the general election campaign was grilled on his party’s policy in a TV interview tonight.

It was the first time that Mr Farage has come under this much scrutiny since he announced his comeback to frontline politics.

When Mr Farage was asked whether his migration policy would involve “one in, one out”, he said: “Yes, I mean it’s not as simplistic as that, but yes.”

Mr Farage, 60, also said Brexit had failed Britons who voted for it believing that immigration numbers would be reduced.

Net migration in the year ending December 2023 stood at 685,000, compared with an estimate of 764,000 for the year ending December 2022.

Mr Farage was quizzed on whether people who overstay their work permit in Britain should have their door smashed down, put in handcuffs and deported from the country.

He said: “I’m talking figuratively. In America they would do that. We don’t quite do that here.”

He added: “A work permit should be a work permit.”

Mr Farage, who is standing to be the MP for Clacton in Essex, has committed to becoming the “voice of opposition” at the next general election.

His party has surged in recent polls - even passing the Conservatives’ vote share nationally.

In a clash about the climate crisis, Mr Farage called a comment made by King Charles “very stupid”.

The Reform chief took aim at the Monarch, who he previously called an eco-loony, for describing carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

Speaking last night, Mr Farage said: “The King, he wasn’t the King then, and I can’t speak ill of the monarch obviously. But he did used to say that carbon dioxide was a pollutant which I thought was a very stupid comment.”

Mr Farage has pledged to axe net zero - which the UK has legally committed to reaching by 2050.

He also blamed the EU and the “ever-eastward” expansion of NATO for provoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Farage said: “Very interestingly, once again, 10 years ago when I predicted this – by the way, I’m the only person in British politics that predicted what would happen, and of course everyone said I was a pariah for daring to suggest it.

“George Robertson, former Labour cabinet minister, who went on to become the Secretary General of NATO has in the last couple of weeks said the war is a direct result of the EU expansion.”

The Reform leader, who is attempting to get a seat in the Commons for the eighth time, also called himself a “fighter” and a “warrior”.

He added: “I’m a campaigner. I stand up against big institutions when they behave badly, whether they’re banks or out of touch bureaucracies based in Brussels, and very often, I win.”

Mr Farage took aim at “shameless” Sir Keir Starmer by accusing him of using army veterans to promote Labour’s image as “the party of national security”.

Sir Keir’s Labour government could abolish a law that protects Northern Ireland military veterans from being prosecuted

Writing in the Express, he called the Opposition Party “a threat to Britain’s future as a secure democracy”.

He added: “What is patriotic about allowing ex-soldiers in their seventies and eighties to be dragged before the courts for what leftie human rights lawyers allege that they did while serving their country on UK streets decades ago?

“How dare shameless Starmer pose with army veterans for election campaign PR around the D-Day anniversary, while plotting to help railroad their former comrades into court?

“The Northern Ireland Legacy act was passed by the UK parliament late last year. It offers a conditional amnesty to all those accused of offences committed during the 30 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, whether they were British soldiers or terrorists on either the Republican or Loyalist side.

“This law is one of the very few pledges that the Tory government can claim to have fulfilled.”