THE GUARDIAN: Proposed ‘removals force’ will be tasked with deporting 150,000 people a year in bid to tackle illegal immigration
The Conservatives will pledge to create a new immigration taskforce modelled on Donald Trump’s controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency, the Guardian understands.
The party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, is expected to announce the policy on Sunday as the Conservatives heads into their annual conference after a year of historic low poll ratings. The proposed “removals force” will be tasked with deporting 150,000 people a year in a move to tackle illegal immigration.
Badenoch will say that the taskforce would be given £1.6bn and “sweeping new powers” if the Conservatives win the next election. This would include the ability to use facial recognition technology without warning to help identify those eligible for removal from the UK.
Under the plans, the taskforce would be expected to “work closely” with the police. Officers would be required to conduct immigration checks on everyone they stop or arrest, Badenoch is expected to add.
Badenoch will say that the Ice model has proved to be a “successful approach” in removing migrants who have illegally entered the US. Ice removed nearly 200,000 people in the first seven months of Trump’s second presidency, US media reported. However, it has also faced widespread criticism, both for arresting legal migrants and allegedly targeting people on the grounds of their race. » | Geraldine McKelvie | Saturday, Octoner 4, 2025
My regular visitors will surely remember that I stated years ago that the Conservatives were going the way of the dodo. Or, put another way, the Tories would suffer the fate of the Whigs before them. My words have come true. The Conservative Party is a spent force.
Moreover, if the party continues to select duds as leaders, their fate will remain so: the party will have zero chance of having any life breathed back into it. Kemi Badenoch is another such dud. This woman has no chance of leading the party back to vistory. Every policy idea this woman has come up with is stale and, quite frankly, ridiculous. Her three main policies are as follows: that this country should leave the ECHR; that the country needs more Thatcherism; and now, that her government would emulate the tactics of Trump’s Gestapo, known in the States as ICE.
This woman is WRONG on ALL THREE POLICIES! Further, her STALE THINKING would RUIN this country and its international reputation.
Brexit has dug this country into a hole. And the first rule of what to do when you find yourself in a HOLE is to STOP DIGGING! This woman just wants to keep on digging!
The ECHR—the European Convention on Human Rights—has got nothing to do with the European Union. Though I wouldn’t mind betting that Badenoch thinks it does, simply because its title has the word ‘European’ in it! It would be ludicrous for the country to exit the ECHR. It is this which guarantees OUR rights as British subjects of the King! To think that trusting any British government to write a document guaranteeing our rights if we left would be like trusting a pet snake not to bite you!
More Thatcherism is the last thing this country needs! We already have enough wealth inequality from the last dose we had of Thatcherism. And in any case, Thatcher herself sold off all the family silver. As a result, the nation is on its uppers; so there is no more family silver left to sell off!
And as for her latest suggestion of emulating Trump’s Gestapo, well… Whoever would have thought that any Briton could be so atupid or so cruel? Furthermore, does this European nation ALWAYS have to follow what American presidents do, even when their policies are the height of cruelty and even when the president himself is suffering from galloping dementia?
If Conservatives know what is good for them—and please remember that I write as a one-time, lifelong, ardent Conservative—they will ditch this leader. Being led by such thinking will give the party no chance even of a comeback, still less a victory at the polls! — © Mark Alexander
The Guardian view on Conservative party conference: Kemi Badenoch’s last shot at relevance: The Tory leader’s warped analysis of why her party is unpopular has lead her into strategic misjudgments and terrible policy choices »
