Last month, Nigel Farage, the leader of British anti-immigration party Reform U.K., unveiled his proposals on asylum. International agreements and treaties would be scrapped. Hundreds of thousands would be rounded up, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-style; detained; and deported. Gulags would be established on remote British outposts in the Atlantic. Return deals would be struck with Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and other dictatorships. The ideas are reprehensible but also fantastical, with few details; dubious costs; and, perhaps, low popularity. Doing business with the Taliban polls terribly, even among Farage’s own supporters.

Yet the Labour Party’s meek response merely quibbled with the feasibility rather than firmly condemning the idea of abandoning international law and handing over civilians and money to hostile and bloodthirsty regimes. The government has spent so long blurring the lines between their approach to immigration and Reform’s that they will no longer stand up to the far right.

Last month, Nigel Farage, the leader of British anti-immigration party Reform U.K., unveiled his proposals on asylum. International agreements and treaties would be scrapped. Hundreds of thousands would be rounded up, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-style; detained; and deported. Gulags would be established on remote British outposts in the Atlantic. Return deals would be struck with Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and other dictatorships. The ideas are reprehensible but also fantastical, with few details; dubious costs; and, perhaps, low popularity. Doing business with the Taliban polls terribly, even among Farage’s own supporters.

Yet the Labour Party’s meek response merely quibbled with the feasibility rather than firmly condemning the idea of abandoning international law and handing over civilians and money to hostile and bloodthirsty regimes. The government has spent so long blurring the lines between their approach to immigration and Reform’s that they will no longer stand up to the far right.

It is not always about numbers. The United Kingdom receives a tiny fraction of the globally displaced. Asylum-seekers on small boats represent less than 5 percent of overall migration. In 2024, net migration to the U.K. halved from 2023 levels, and yet the discourse is as toxic as ever. It is about the far right wanting a forever war on migrants and, by extension, minorities. Reform U.K. sits in an ecosystem in which remigration—the deportation of nonwhite British citizens—is openly and increasingly discussed. And Labour is playing right into its hands.

In May, in his customary stilted tones, Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered a key speech in which he warned against the United Kingdom becoming “an island of strangers” and accused the previous Tory........

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