12/10/2026
Britain is a great, strong country, and here in Kent we know that better than anyone.
From the arrival of the Huguenots on our coast to Holocaust survivors finding refuge here, our county has a long, proud history of welcoming people with a genuine need of sanctuary.
That quiet decency, compassion, and strength of character is an essential part of who we are.
That is why Nigel Farage’s pledge to completely abolish the UK asylum system is so utterly shameful. It is morally bankrupt, legally illiterate, and completely unhinged from reality.
Let’s be completely clear about what Farage is actually proposing. He is demanding that Britain slam the door on human beings who face a provable, documented certainty of murder, r**e, or state torture.
He is looking Afghan interpreters who risked everything alongside British soldiers, Iranian women facing ex*****on for demanding basic freedom, and political dissidents brutalised by authoritarian regimes in the eye and saying: we do not care if you die.
To boast about tearing up the 1951 UN Refugee Convention—a framework British jurists helped draft in the ashes of the Holocaust precisely so victims of genocide and torture would never again be abandoned—is not patriotism. It is cowardice. It betrays the finest traditions of our nation and our county.
Wiping out our asylum framework would strip away every single legal safeguard protecting people at verifiable risk of torture and ex*****on, trampling over the fundamental principle of international law that says you do not return people to their deaths.
Crucially, Farage’s plan would not stop a single dinghy crossing the Channel. It would do the exact opposite.
It would hand absolute control of our coastline to ruthless people-smuggling gangs. Desperate families fleeing certain death will not simply disappear because a politician tore up a treaty; stripping away legal oversight just guarantees that these people are forced straight into the shadows. It is an open charter for modern slavery, exploitation, and illegal underground work operating right across Kent and the South East.
You do not show strength by abandoning torture survivors, and you do not secure our borders with populist stunts designed to grab cheap headlines.
What our communities in Kent need is competence, control, and basic human decency:
First, we need to smash the criminal smuggling networks by running serious, joint intelligence and policing operations alongside France and Europol, stopping the boats before they ever reach the water.
Second, we must establish controlled, sensible safe routes to undercut the black market and destroy the smugglers' business model once and for all.
Third, we have to fix the Home Office so that claims are processed swiftly and fairly—giving immediate protection to genuine refugees while ensuring those who have no legal right to remain are returned quickly and efficiently.
Britain has stood against tyranny for centuries, offering sanctuary to those fleeing oppression. Nigel Farage wants to drag our country into the gutter of international law and leave the vulnerable to die. The Liberal Democrats will fight him every step of the way.
