Nigel Farage will go to court to halt asylum seekers being housed in Reform-run areas as party faces legal battle
NIGEL Farage is ready to go to court to stop asylum seekers being housed in Reform-run areas.
A legal battle with Ministers is now on the cards within 100 days in a major push to close migrant hotels blighting communities.
5
5
5
The battle-hardy tactics were revealed by party chair Zia Yusuf who revealed 'every instrument of power' will be deployed by local authorities.
The move follows Sir Keir Starmer declaring he would bring asylum hotels, costing £5.5 million PER DAY, to an end in an election pledge.
winning control of ten local authorities.
Mr Yusuf told the BBC: 'Those levers of power will be pulled with all of our might by Reform councils, we'll use every instrument of power available to us to stop it.
'And there are things you can do, there are judicial reviews, there are injunctions, there's a lot of different things can be done, things around planning.'
He conceded that the 'levers of power' were greater from Westminster but attempts would be made despite contracts between the Home Office and accommodation providers.
He told the BBC: "You know, a lot of these hotels - there has been litigation around this already.
'A lot of these hotels, when you suddenly turn them into something else, which is essentially a hostel that falls foul of any number of regulations.
And that's what our teams of lawyers are exploring at the moment."
He said his party had pledged to "resist" housing asylum seekers in Reform controlled areas.
Mr Yusuf told The Telegraph the legal action could be launched by the autumn.
He said: 'Reform-controlled councils will launch the resistance to the dispersal of illegal immigrants into their communities within their first 100 days.'
The victories last week, including the Runcorn by-election, led Mr Farage to insist he was on course to be Prime Minister.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said it was feasible that Mr Farage could enter Downing Street – saying Anthony Albanese came back to win there having been written off.
She told the BBC: "As I said, anything is feasible. Anthony Albanese: people were writing him off. He has just won a landslide, but my job is to make sure that he (Farage) does not become prime minister because he does not have the answers to the problems the country is facing."
5
5
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
2 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Nigel Farage U-turns on plan to scrap all MSPs and put Scottish MPs in Holyrood instead
The Reform UK leader once wanted a watered down parly when he bossed the Ukip party U-TURN Nigel Farage U-turns on plan to scrap all MSPs and put Scottish MPs in Holyrood instead Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) NIGEL Farage has U-turned on a plan to scrap all MSPs and put Scottish MPs in Holyrood instead. The Reform UK leader wanted a watered down parly when he bossed the Ukip party — but now concedes 'devolution is here to stay'. 1 Nigel Farage says devolution is here to stay Credit: Getty But he told The Scottish Sun: 'I don't think you can turn the clock back. We're not going to reverse devolution.' Mr Farage previously wanted to axe our parliament as we know it and put Scotland's Westminster politicians in there when they decide on Scottish-only matters. Reform surged to third in last week's Hamilton by-election — fewer than 1,500 votes behind winners Labour. Farage — bookies' favourite to be the next PM — hit out at 'excesses of the Scottish Parliament' such as whopping construction costs and 'the fact that it's really failed quite badly to deliver on some of its key objectives — education in particular, and health'. He said: 'The job now is to make sure it's done better.' Reform grabbed 26.1 per cent of the vote last week, the SNP 29.4 per cent and Labour 31.6 per cent. Farage's party is tipped to grab at least a dozen MSPs at the 2026 election — but has been criticised for a lack of devolved policies. Asked how his party would spend £10billion if they had power in Scotland, Mr Farage said: 'What about creating money? What about creating wealth and jobs? What about upping the average income of people living in Scotland? That's my priority.' Reform has published a one-page, 200-word 'position paper' which states: 'We have a vision where personal liberty and free speech are respected and promoted, support is available when needed, but life is largely untrammelled by government interference.' It also plugs 'traditional Scottish values' like 'integrity, thrift, hard work and tolerance'. Dark curse ravaging 'UK's best high street' On independence, it says Scotland should stay as a 'full and respected member of the UK
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
Farage's proposal is just the latest undermining of the Barnett system
This, according to senior criminologists and ex-police officers, is not just a failure of admin, it's the result of austerity-era cuts that stripped police forces of capacity, dismantled the state-run Forensic Science Service in 2012, and left fragmented, underfunded systems to cope with ballooning evidence demands. Austerity didn't just weaken institutions; it disassembled infrastructure. READ MORE: Nigel Farage could cut the Barnett Formula. Here's what devolution experts think of that While these failings may seem like an English and Welsh concern, they tell a broader UK-wide story. Because when public services are cut in England, the Barnett formula translates those cuts into reduced budget allocations for Holyrood, too. Scotland has long borne the dual burden of being denied full fiscal autonomy while also seeing its devolved budget squeezed by decisions made for entirely different priorities south of the Border. Cuts to police, criminal courts, housing, public health, and local government in England have systematically eroded the spending floor on which Scottish services rest. So when justice collapses in England, it affects Scotland financially – even if the governance is separate. And now, against this backdrop of UK-wide budgetary degradation, Nigel Farage has called for the scrapping of the Barnett formula entirely. It's a move that's politically convenient, historically illiterate, and economically reckless. But more than anything, it's a distillation of what's already happening by stealth. Successive UK governments have undermined the foundations of the Barnett system – and devolution itself – for more than a decade. READ MORE: Furious Anas Sarwar clashes with BBC journalist over Labour policies It's obvious to every Scot that Farage's view relies on a mischaracterisation of Barnett as a subsidy, when in fact it simply ensures Scotland receives a proportional share of changes to spending in England for devolved services. It doesn't calculate entitlement or need, it mirrors policy shifts at Westminster. If England increases education or health spending, Scotland sees a relative uplift. If England cuts deeply, Scotland's budget falls, even if demand remains or rises. This has led to an absurd and punitive dynamic where Scotland loses funding not by its own decisions, but because England spends less. And when Scotland chooses to maintain higher standards in public services, it must do so from a proportionately smaller pot. Perversely, it doesn't stop there, though. Since the 2016 Brexit vote, Westminster has begun bypassing devolved governments directly. Funds like the Levelling Up Fund and Shared Prosperity Fund are allocated by UK ministers to local authorities, often bypassing Holyrood entirely. Promises made in The Vow on the eve of the 2014 independence referendum to deliver near-federal powers and respect Scottish decision-making have unravelled. READ MORE: SNP must turn support for independence into 'real political action' The Internal Market Act has overridden devolved laws under the banner of market 'consistency'. Powers that returned from Brussels in areas like food standards, procurement, and agriculture were supposed to go to Holyrood, but in many cases they were retained by Westminster. The Sewel Convention, once a safeguard of devolved consent, has been treated as optional. Farage's proposal to scrap Barnett isn't an outlier, it's the natural conclusion of a decade-long pattern: cut services in England, shrink the Barnett allocation, bypass devolved institutions, and then blame the devolved nations for 'taking more than their share'. There's no consideration of fairness, or implementation of a needs-based analysis, it's a strategy of erosion; one that gouges out the Union from the centre while draping itself in the flag. The failures of justice in England, catastrophic as they are, expose a deeper injustice: the systematic unravelling of the constitutional promises made to Scotland. Ron Lumiere via email
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
STEPHEN DAISLEY: Our political class had better start learning to pass themselves off as human or Reform will deliver a nasty surprise
It's not the done thing to say, 'I told you so.' Thankfully, I've never been one for the done thing. So, to the political class: I told you so. For some time now, this column has been warning the mainstream parties against complacency towards Reform. But that complacency carried well into the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, and now it's rude awakenings all round. After the initial shock of Labour 's victory, politicians and pundits noticed something else about the result: Reform got 26 per cent of the poll. One in every four votes cast went to Nigel Farage 's candidate, Ross Lambie. He came just three points shy of the SNP. If that was replicated across Scotland in next year's devolved elections, we would be looking at a very different Scottish parliament. All of a sudden, the political establishment is very concerned about Reform and wants us to know they're Listening and Learning. Yesterday on television, viewers saw a more meditative John Swinney than usual. The Nationalists had to 'win people back' by 'delivering on the issues that people are concerned about'. The First Minister said he 'heard loud and clear' the message from the voters and recognised their priorities were the cost of living, public services, GP access and waiting lists. The SNP had to 'give people hope' on energy costs, too. He wanted Scotland to 'use our enormous energy wealth for the benefit of our people who are paying extraordinary high fuel prices'. Who knew that nuking the oil and gas industry in exchange for a few headlines could have such a damaging impact? The time for delivering on what voters care about was the past 18 years, in which the SNP has commanded the Scottish Government and its vast array of powers. The electors were loud and clear about the cost of living. The SNP raised their taxes. They were loud and clear about waiting times. The SNP continues to miss their own targets for emergency and cancer treatment. Swinney said voters needed hope. Fine. One question: why after almost two decades of SNP government are people still in need of hope? The First Minister, like his two predecessors, is a managerial technocrat. He gets the line, he says the line, he holds the line, and it doesn't matter what the line is, just as long as it's the yellow team's line and not their red or blue rivals. Whatever youthful ideals and certainties might have brought him into the SNP, the Swinney of today is in politics to be in politics. His chief contribution to the Hamilton by-election, beyond talking up Reform's chances, was the anti-'far right' summit to which he invited every party except Reform. We will probably never know what impact this spiteful display had on the voters of Hamilton, but it might have convinced some that the mainstream parties were all in it together and Reform the only challenge to their power. Just as the sight of Labour joining forces with the Tories during the independence referendum drove some Labour voters to switch to the SNP, there is a chance this gathering had the same effect. The anti-'far right' summit might well have been Swinney's Better Together. Post-election ruminations were not limited to the Nats. In a blogpost, Ross Greer advises against echoing Swinney's anti-Reform strategy, which he believes will only squeeze out his party come election time. The Greens versus the SNP. As Henry Kissinger said of the Iran-Iraq war: 'It's a pity they both can't lose.' Yet Greer says 'people are right to be angry' because 'the system is rigged' — not in favour of immigrants, but billionaires and second-home owners. He wants the Greens to take 'a greater focus on economic justice' but stresses that this shouldn't 'come at the expense of social justice'. You don't have to strain hard to see the subtext: the Greens have been stalwart on rights issues (migrants, refugees, trans people) but have let their eye off the ball on economics. Another hint that Greer will stand for election to succeed Patrick Harvie. But few Scottish politicians have been as focused on social justice as Greer. If it's not pronouns with him it's Palestine, and while these press the right buttons for the Greens' graduate, urban, professional voter base, they do nothing to confront inequalities in resources and opportunities. Greer believes the answer is 'economic justice', which is what you call socialism when you don't want to remind people of all that unfortunate business about dictators and death tolls. His prescriptions are wrong but not his analysis of the importance of economics. He frets about 'creeping fascism' but if authoritarianism takes root in economic despair, there is no fertiliser like a decadent, inward-looking ruling class. As Scottish people struggle financially, they see the Greens champion their top priorities: gender self-identification and free bus travel for asylum seekers. Economics is reasserting itself as the primary language of politics. If the Greens don't become conversant in it, they could find themselves talking to fewer and fewer voters. Popular discontent is also troubling Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, who wrote in the Mail: 'I am listening, I get it and I understand how you feel. My party let you down in government and we accept responsibility for our mistakes.' Coming within one percentage point of losing your deposit can inspire contrition that way. Introspection would have been better deployed during the 14 years when the Conservatives delivered a toxic cocktail of high taxes and low growth, more borrowing and worse services, spiking inflation and flatlining productivity. They lost the confidence of the markets and paid a heavy political toll but nothing like the financial toll that befell ordinary families. This in itself would be enough to merit a term or two on the opposition benches, but the Tories compounded their economic recklessness by losing all semblance of control over the UK's borders. Unprecedented levels of legal and illegal migration have transformed communities, disrupted ways of life, strained services, drained budgets and provoked resentment within the native population. Nigel Farage will forever be in the Tories' debt for services rendered. Findlay didn't cause his party's woes and is making a valiant attempt to set things right. The spirit of the times is anti-establishment and a political outsider ought to be well-placed to capitalise on this, but he is shackled by the Conservatives' record in government. Findlay is gutsy. He needs more people with guts behind him. Reform's growing popularity is no great secret. A sizeable chunk of voters are drawn to Reform because it speaks about the issues that matter to them. Honestly, they're just relieved to encounter a political party that speaks to them without visible disdain. You needn't be Reform to do this. Look at the winner in Hamilton. Labour's Davy Russell is not a political smoothie. I doubt if he can recite entire West Wing scenes from memory. I don't know his pronouns and I wouldn't care to ask him. He is an ordinary bloke with an electoral mandate. His opponents derided him, the pundits dismissed him, the press disregarded him. Everyone was against him except the voters. People aren't turning to Reform for its carefully costed policy platform. They are frustrated with a political class in which everyone looks the same, thinks the same, and talks like the same dead-eyed HR manager posting on LinkedIn. I doubt my advice will be any more welcome this time, but to the political class: It's not complicated. Talk to people, listen to them, make their priorities yours, and try very hard to pass yourselves off as human.
