𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

He said: “We are very worried about the category of indefinite leave to remain. It doesn’t work.

“In many, many cases, it becomes a back door to a life on benefits, a life bringing the extended family.

“The point on those with indefinite leave to remain now is we want people to have work visas, we want people here who work and pay taxes. If they do, that’s fine.

“But we do not want people coming in, slipping through this five-year system and frankly becoming a burden on this country.

“If you have lived in the country on ILR, and you have not worked, and not paid into the system, you are going to be told ‘your benefits are being cut, we’re not going to keep paying you benefits. It might be better if you return to your own country”.

Asked if that would include Ukrainian and Hong Kong refugees, Mr Farage insisted: “No, because they have come for different reasons.”

Asked about Afghanistan, the Reform UK leader: “I think that is a slightly different category. It depends who they are.

“When it comes to genuine refugees, if you study the record, they do not tend to live off social security.

“They tend to have been some of the hardest-working and, in many cases, the most successful people in the country.

“We have an unsustainable immigration system with a population exploding.

“An unsustainable welfare bill. Now, one in six people on Universal Credit is foreign-born.”

Reform will scrap indefinite leave to remain and replace it with a five-year visa.

Anyone already granted settlement rights would also have to reapply.

And, as revealed by the Daily Express, Nigel Farage will ban all foreign nationals from claiming any form of welfare.

Only UK citizens will be able to receive benefits under a Reform government.

The party will increase the qualifying period for British citizenship to seven years.

Reform’s policy chief Zia Yusuf admitted the party was not scrapping European settled status, which grants the same rights as ILR for EU citizens.

Some 4.12million EU citizens have successfully applied for settled status in the UK.

Any legislation barring EU migrants from claiming benefits could breach the Brexit withdrawal agreement, which provided for reciprocal welfare payments for EU and British nationals living abroad.

This could create a potential showdown with the EU.

Mr Yusuf said: “There is a caveat, there are a lot of EU nationals in this country who are drawing on Universal Credit.

“So you can expect Nigel’s government to open negotiations with the European Union specifically about the welfare aspect. But as Nigel has said the big issue we’re talking about here is the non-EU numbers.”

Migrants will face stricter limits on the number of dependants they can bring with them to the UK.

If Reform wins the next general election, lower-paid migrants will only be able to bring one family member with them.

This increases to two in the next tier.

Only people in “Threshold 3” – the highest-paid arrivals – would avoid restrictions on who they can bring.

Figures highlighted in policy documents show 55% of the social care visas issued in 2023 were to dependents.

This is “58 times the Government estimate” on the number of arrivals under the scheme set up to avoid a social care crisis.

Research by the Centre for Policy Studies revealed over two million visas were issued to migrants between January 2021 and June 2024.

This has led to warnings that as many as 800,000 could apply for indefinite leave to remain – and get access to benefits, the NHS and social homes – after they have lived in the UK for five years.

The first of this cohort – dubbed the Boris wave – could apply for indefinite leave to remain from January.

Asked if families could be broken up, Mr Farage said: “No, we haven’t suggested that or anything like it.

“We then have a massive job in working out who has taken the mickey out of our system.”

Sunday Express columnist and LBC Radio Host Nick Ferrari then asked: “If I’m legally settled and my children don’t have jobs, could they be deported?”

Mr Farage said: “No, they could lose benefits but not be deported.”

Clarifying whether he would ban dual citizenship, the Reform UK leader said: “The reason you are going to get all of this is very simple, both the Labour and the Tory parties are terrified of the truth of what indefinite leave to remain and lax borders are costing British taxpayers.”

A staggering 211,090 migrants given indefinite leave to remain received Universal Credit in August, up from 153,648 a year ago, new figures showed.

It also represents a 120% increase from the 95,612 in April 2022.

Another 770,379 European migrants are claiming Universal Credit, up from 644,847 in April 2022, after being allowed to stay under the EU Settlement Scheme.

Net migration hit a staggering 906,000 in the year to June 2023.