Zia Yusuf has vowed to crack down on EU benefits (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage can use trade as “leverage” to end “insane” benefit payments for European nationals, Zia Yusuf has declared. Reform’s pick for Home Secretary said leaders on the continent are “laughing at us”, before warning “they won’t be when Nigel is prime minister”. And, in a bold declaration, he declared: “It’s insane and unacceptable that Britain should be a food bank for the world”. Mr Farage and Mr Yusuf have vowed to tear up the Withdrawal Agreement with European leaders to prevent the welfare bill for foreign citizens spiralling to more than £20billion.
The businessman-turned-politician claimed handouts have increased “sevenfold”, heaping intense pressure on government finances. Mr Yusuf told the Daily Express: “It was already an unfair deal and now the facts on the ground have completely changed. If you don’t renegotiate that, then I want to reiterate, that number is going to be north of £20billion.
“I know these numbers sound abstract. And I know it might be difficult for people to process because they are so big. But, by 2030, it’s going to be more than the country spends on policing.
“So, we have to go and have this conversation. It is completely unfair. We will stop those payments and we will negotiate. This is ridiculous, it is insane. European leaders are laughing at us. They won’t be laughing at us when Nigel is prime minister.”
Reform has vowed to 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. This means Nigel Farage would unpick Boris Johnson’s deal with Brussels that guaranteed EU citizens the right to claim benefits in the UK.
Mr Yusuf told the Daily Express: “If you’re an EU Settled Status in this country, you will continue to have Settled Status in this country.
“Here’s what we are changing – your entitlement to welfare in this country. £15billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent on universal credit payments alone, that is before any other form of welfare. That’s already an insane number. If you extrapolate that through to 2029, that’s well north of £20billion. So, my question is, how big does that number need to be?
Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf and Nigel Farage have big plans (Image: Getty)
“The vast majority of that, by the way, are EU nationals. So, does it need to be £25billion, £50billion, 100billion?
“In terms of what our leverage is, look, we’re a really important trading partner for France, for Germany, for lots of countries in the EU.
“When that Withdrawal Agreement was negotiated, there were already four times as many EU nationals in the UK claiming welfare as the other way around. So, it was already ridiculous. That’s what the Tories did – completely betrayed everybody.
“Since then, the number of EU nationals in the UK claiming welfare payments has increased sevenfold. So, we’ve got to adapt, we’ve got to stand up for the interests of the British people. That’s what Nigel will do for us as prime minister.”
Mr Yusuf said the UK is being “invaded” by migrants as he pitched Reform’s mass deportation programme as the biggest in UK history.
And he declared foreign citizens must “more than pay” their way. Reform’s home affairs spokesman told migrants: “Here’s our ask and what we require. You more than pay your way, economically, you speak English, and you do not commit crime.
“Any serious country would say that’s sensible. Any reasonable person would say that’s sensible.
“It is totally insane and unfair while people are struggling and buckling under the tax burden in this country, and the cost of living crisis, where our military is hollowed out, where our pensioners are being betrayed, where farmers are in some cases committing suicide because of the tax rates on them.
“It’s insane and unacceptable that Britain should be a food bank for the world. That’s why we have to renegotiate that.”
Mr Yusuf, in an exclusive interview, warned that Channel migrants will succeed in carrying out a terror attack.
“It seems like that’s a tragically and devastatingly likely thing to potentially happen. Our security services do an incredible job under extremely difficult circumstances. I believe they’re vastly under-resourced. I don’t think it helps them at all that we’ve had pathetically cowardly political leaders who are just allowing people, as I said, to turn up on our beaches.”
If Reform wins the next election, a new ‘UK Deportation Command’ will use data from banks, the Home Office, HMRC, police, DVLA and NHS to identify every illegal migrant.
They will then be offered £2,500 each to leave the UK during a six-month grace period.
Once the voluntary returns programme comes to an end, immigration enforcement teams will be ordered to carry out raids and detain them.
New laws introduced in a planned Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill will bar illegal migrants from claiming asylum, and the home secretary will have a legal duty to remove them.
Reform will also leave the European Convention on Human Rights, and disapply other pieces of human rights laws, such as the Refugee Convention, to allow five deportation flights every day.
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