Has Reform changed the immigration debate?

In politics the summer holidays offer a major opportunity for opposition parties.

A quieter news agenda means the chance to break through with policies.

Multiple government sources have told me that they think Reform UK has beaten both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the August battle of attracting attention.

That may have been helped by Tuesday’s finale in Nigel Farage’s summer crime campaign: the unveiling of the party’s long-awaited illegal immigration strategy.

A couple of attendees at the news conference, at an aircraft hangar in Oxfordshire, told me what was most notable was not just the boldness of the policy but quite how much money the party had spent on the event.

“It was like a TV variety show,” said one.

That suggests the party is continuing to attract donors – helped by opinion polls consistently suggesting that a Farage premiership is possible.

Since April, Reform has had a lead over Labour according to these surveys.

Research suggests illegal immigration is also among the top issues for voters, although there is evidence that many have a limited understanding of the balance of illegal and legal migration in the UK.

So has Nigel Farage changed the debate on immigration?

Arguably the rise in small boat crossings since 2018 has been a major factor in crystallizing voters’ concerns. It is a very visible, striking, and relatively new form of illegal migration.

These arrivals make up just over a third of those claiming asylum in the UK – many others arrive on a visa and then put in a claim.

Yet the record numbers of crossings have become emblematic of wider anxiety that the asylum system is not working. And prime ministers have struggled to fix it.

Rishi Sunak tried and failed to “stop the boats”. Keir Starmer also made a major commitment on immigration – to “smash the gangs”.

No party seems to be arguing that people making perilous journeys across the English Channel is a good thing. And therefore the UK political debate is focussed on who can solve this issue and how.

The solutions on offer from political parties have steadily become more radical in recent months with the Conservatives now examining whether to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Labour government is promising to introduce new legislation by the end of the year to tighten the way some of that convention is used in asylum cases to prevent legal delays.

Yet Reform is undoubtedly proposing the most radical solution – including leaving the convention altogether.

Nigel Farage’s plans to tackle illegal immigration are big and would prompt a host of legal and practical challenges.

In his long political career he has regularly been accused of not being interested in policy detail, and at Tuesday’s news conference Farage repeatedly deferred to his colleague Zia Yusaf when questioned about Reform’s policy.

The policy document handed out to attendees was just four pages long, even if a party source insisted this was just a summary of Reform’s – still secret – 100 page plan.

Questions will continues to be asked about how Reform intend to deport unaccompanied children, as well as the dangers of returning people to unsafe countries like Afghanistan where they could potentially face torture or death.

Farage’s response was: “The alternative of course is to do nothing… We cannot be responsible for all the sins that take place around the world.”

Labour’s ideal way of combating Nigel Farage is fixing the backlogs in the asylum system and stopping small boat arrivals.

Yet below the surface the party’s strategy for tackling Reform directly is also changing.

Some argue that Number 10 remain in the experimentation phase: “We throw stuff at them and see what sticks”, was how one official described the tactics.

But three sources told me the government is consciously working to treat Reform’s plans seriously and scrutinise them in detail.

As part of that effort the party sent journalists a list of 24 detailed questions for Nigel Farage about his plan ahead of its publication.

“We want to force Nigel Farage into the policy terrain where he has to dodge questions, and look like every other politician,” said a source.

However the Reform leader is well aware that politics is about emotional arguments as well as practical ones.

And for now, the polls suggest he is adept at identifying and articulating voters’ concerns. Even if solving them may be much more difficult.