Reform UK has hit back at both the Archbishop of York and the government following criticism of its immigration policies.

Leader Nigel Farage announced the party’s flagship immigration plan during a flashy news conference held at an aircraft hangar in Oxford on Tuesday.

The party pledged to deport anybody who comes to the UK illegally, regardless of whether they might come to harm, and said it would pay countries with questionable human rights records – such as Afghanistan – to take people back.

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It also said it would leave numerous international agreements, and revoke the Human Rights Act, in order to do this.

The policy was criticised by the Conservatives, who said Mr Farage was “copying our homework”, while parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Greens condemned it.

But the plan came under fire from an altogether different angle on Saturday, when the Archbishop of York accused it of being an “isolationist, short-term kneejerk” approach, with no “long-term solutions”.

Stephen Cottrell, who is the acting head of the Church of England, told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that he had “every sympathy” with those who find the issue of immigration tricky. But he said Reform UK’s plan does “nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country”, and would in fact, make “the problem worse”.

Speaking on the same programme, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, responded to the archbishop’s criticisms, saying that “all of it is wrong”.

The MP for Boston and Skegness said he was a Christian who “enjoys” the church – but that the “role of the archbishop is not actually to interfere with international migration policies”.

Mr Tice then turned his fire on the government, accusing ministers of being “more interested in protecting the rights of people who’ve come here illegally… than looking after the rights of British citizens”.

He accused ministers of having “abandoned” their duty of “looking after the interests of British citizens”.

Mr Tice reaffirmed his party’s policy that the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), calling it a “70-year-old, out-of-date, unfit-for-purpose agreement”.

The Reform UK deputy leader also:

• Defended plans to pay the Taliban to take migrants back, comparing it to doing business deals with “people you don’t like”

• Said the Royal Navy should be deployed in the English Channel as a “deterrent”, but added: “We’re not saying sink the boats”

• Urged the government to call an early general election

Meanwhile, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told Sky News that Reform “want to provoke anger, but they don’t actually want to solve the problems that we face in front of us”.

She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the UK had a “proud tradition [of] supporting those facing persecution”.

But she added: “We will make sure that people who have no right to be in this country are removed from this country. That’s right. It’s what people expect. It’s what this government will deliver.”

Ms Phillipson also insisted there “needs to be reform of the ECHR” and said the home secretary is “looking at the article eight provisions”, which cover the right to a private and family life, to see “whether they need updating and reforming for the modern age”.

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However, she refused to say what the government would do if it is found that the ECHR is unreformable. Instead, she defended Labour’s position of staying in the governance of the convention, saying that honouring the “rule of law” is important.

She added: “Our standing in the world matters if we want to strike trade deals with countries. We need to be a country that’s taken seriously. We need to be a country that honours our obligations and honours the rule of law.”

Ms Phillipson was also drawn on the recent court ruling in favour of the Home Office, which overturned an injunction banning The Bell Hotel in Epping from housing asylum seekers.

Challenged on whether the government is prioritising the rights of asylum seekers over British citizens, she said it “is about a balance of rights”.

The cabinet minister also repeated the government’s plans to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said the Conservatives would be willing to leave the ECHR – if this route is recommended to them.

The Tories have asked a senior judge to look into the “legal intricacies” of leaving the convention, which he said is “not straightforward”. He said when the party receives that report, it will then make a decision.

Challenged on whether the Tories will leave if that is what the report recommends, he added: “If that’s what’s necessary, we will do it.”

Mr Burghart also said he believed the previous Conservative government’s biggest mistake was that “we did not go far enough on overruling human rights legislation”, which prevented it from “taking the tough action that was absolutely necessary”.

But he added the Conservatives have now “put forward very clear legislation that would solve this problem” – though he concluded Labour “isn’t going to do it” so the problem “is going to get worse”.

“We call drones our loyal friends, because they never leave us.”

Tasneem hears Israeli drones overhead, a constant fact of life in Gaza. It gets into your head, into your chest, she says.

“You can’t think, you can’t sleep. You can’t even be.”

“It’s always there, hanging above our heads, like some kind of punishment,” she says. In the background, the slow, constant buzz of a drone is audible.

“The people here in Gaza know that when the drone gets very low, at this level, something will happen. We all know what that something is… I don’t want to mention it.”

Tasneem al Iwini is 24. Like her peers across the world, she splits her time between work, studying for a master’s degree and spending time with her family of six.

Except she also has to deal with warplanes screaming overhead, rocketing food prices and the possibility that any day could be the last for her or her loved ones as Israel continues its war in Gaza.

To give a sense of what day-to-day life is like for her in Deir al Balah, Tasneem recorded a series of audio diary entries over the course of a week as part of her work with ActionAid and shared them exclusively with Sky News.

Day One: At least I’m still breathing

It’s incredibly hot today, Tasneem says. The kind of heat that makes your skin heavy and your thoughts slower.

I had so many things to do on my plate today, but honestly, I couldn’t move.

There’s no electricity and no fans, no air conditioner. So here I am just laying on my mattress and sweating.

My only relief is my plastic tray. I’m just using it as my personal fan…

I keep waving it back and forth, not to cool the room, but just to trick my brain into thinking I have control over this heat.

Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine I’m somewhere cold, as I actually prefer winter.

But then I hear the buzz of flies and mosquitoes in my ear and I remember this is Gaza, summer 2025. It’s exhausting, but at least I’m still breathing.

Day Two: Rocketing price of food

It’s Friday, which is a special day for us as it is the day we usually wait to cook something special. Today we are cooking maqluba (a traditional dish consisting of meat, rice and fried vegetables).

We haven’t tasted any kind of real protein like meat, chicken or fish for more than three months. I really miss chicken and fish badly.

But even this fake maqluba costs a lot, so many families can’t afford it… vegetables are very expensive.

Before the war we used to cook maqluba with at least four kilos of eggplants, because we are crazy about eggplants and its taste in maqluba . Now, if we manage to cook it with only two eggplants, that’s considered a luxury.

The price of one kilo of eggplant is more than 45 shekels. That’s approximately $12.50. Talking about tomatoes, the price is more than 90 shekels, which is approximately $27 per kilo.

Read more:
Number of dead in Gaza ‘reaches 63,000’ – as Israel declares city a combat zone
Israeli protesters attack ‘tyrant’ Netanyahu
Five journalists among 20 killed in Israeli strikes on hospital

Day Three: The drone reality

Here we go again. Our dear friend, the drone, Tasneem says as a buzzing noise hums in the background.

It just never leaves. It’s always there hanging above our heads like some kind of punishment.

The sound, I don’t even know how to describe it.

It’s not just noise. It gets into your head, into your chest. You can’t think, you can’t sleep, you can’t even be.

It drains something inside you slowly, and yet we live with it every day.

Later on:

Hi again. I’m just recording the gunfire. We are not sure what is happening outside, actually.

I can say that this is almost an every afternoon routine.

Day Four: A message to the world

Today I came across a small community kitchen, one of the very few still functioning.

Because of the current situation, especially the scarcity of food and the near-total blockade on the humanitarian aid, most of these kitchens have shut down…

Tasneem says that just after she left the office, the community kitchen was hit in an Israeli strike.

Three youths were killed, and many children were injured.

Those children were playing around and nearby the kitchen…

This time I went to send a message to the world, with a heavy heart burdened by the challenges and the impossible conditions we live under.

I still hold on to hope that this war will end… Because honestly, here in Gaza, we have lost trust in the world, governments and every actor.

Day Five: How many children must die?

Good evening, dear friends. I don’t really know what to say. I feel like my heart is just a drain.

Yesterday I promised to take you through the rest of my day, but honestly, I came home feeling exhausted…

I bought just two cucumbers, and that cost me $8. Yes, $8 for two cucumbers.

This is what it means to say that even the basics have become impossible to get in Gaza.

I came home, washed the cucumbers and cut them into small pieces so all of us could taste what it feels like to eat cucumber.

Tomatoes are even worse. They are completely unaffordable in the market.

And every time I think about the situation we are living through here in Gaza, I feel like I’m out of patience. I just can’t take more.

How many of us have to die before the world decides to intervene? And how many children must die, not from bombing or shelling, but from starvation and malnutrition?

Today, the telecommunications company in Gaza announced that in the next 24 hours it is expected that internet services will shut down again because of the fuel shortage and because of the occupation, who continue to block fuel from entering the Strip.

And this does not mean losing the internet only. It means patients in the ICUs will lose connection to life. It means ambulances, fridges for medications and blood, even water pumps for both drinking and domestic use will stop working.

I was planning today to come home and study for my final exams, but I just sat there for a moment thinking about our reality.

And I couldn’t, I couldn’t do anything. So instead, I decided to record this for you. This is what Gaza looks like right now.

Day Seven: The cemetery is full… and the horror of jets overhead

There are many types of weapons being used… and here in Gaza, we the people have learned to genuinely distinguish between them.

We know each sound by heart.

For example, we know the sound of the F-16 (fighter jet) very well. We can even guess when it has a target.

It has a special tone, like it’s rushing towards something. There is a tension in the air, and we feel it in our bodies.

Whenever I hear one of them, I swear I feel like this is the last moment of my life. I cover my ears with both hands and run to stay nearby my family, because in this moment my heart tells me, if something happens, let it happen to all of us together.

I know that’s not how it works, but that’s how I cope. That’s the only way I feel some false sense of control…

Sometimes it feels like the pilot is showing off, flying lower over the heads of women, children and civilians, as if to say: “Look at me. I can do this.”

Every time the jets go low, I start praying, I do everything I can as if it is the end of my life.

In another voicenote from the same day, Tasneem talked about her walk to work.

I pass by the cemetery every day. Today, I saw a situation that truly broke my heart.

There was a group of angry people gathered around the person who is responsible for digging graves.

They were shouting, saying the cemetery is completely full, and now they have started opening all the graves without knowing who is buried there and without getting any consent from the families of the dead.

They are placing new dead bodies on the top of the old ones, whether they are men, women or children.

Most people were furious, and honestly, I was so disappointed and heartbroken when I saw this.

This is one of those things I wish I never had to witness, but I wanted to share it with you, because it says so much about how bad things have become.

‘Critical moment’ for Gaza

Tasneem works with the Palestinian NGOs Network in Gaza and has partnered with ActionAid in the UK.

A spokesperson for ActionAid UK said: “Humanitarian workers like Tasneem are risking their lives every day to support and advocate for their fellow Palestinians in Gaza, despite experiencing the same intolerable conditions that they are.

“Just imagine having to go to work when you haven’t had a proper meal in days, knowing that at any moment you could be killed by bombing: that is their daily reality. Yet still, people like Tasneem are bravely speaking out and telling their stories so that the world knows the truth about the horrors they are facing…

“This is a critical moment. It’s time for the world to take meaningful action and use every diplomatic lever available to bring about a permanent ceasefire and end the siege on Gaza immediately so that food and other aid can enter unhindered, rapidly and at scale.”

Reform UK has hit back at both the Archbishop of York and the government following criticism of its immigration policies.

Leader Nigel Farage announced the party’s flagship immigration plan during a flashy news conference held at an aircraft hangar in Oxford on Tuesday.

The party pledged to deport anybody who comes to the UK illegally, regardless of whether they might come to harm, and said it would pay countries with questionable human rights records – such as Afghanistan – to take people back.

Politics latest – follow live updates

It also said it would leave numerous international agreements, and revoke the Human Rights Act, in order to do this.

The policy was criticised by the Conservatives, who said Mr Farage was “copying our homework”, while parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Greens condemned it.

But the plan came under fire from an altogether different angle on Saturday, when the Archbishop of York accused it of being an “isolationist, short-term kneejerk” approach, with no “long-term solutions”.

Stephen Cottrell, who is the acting head of the Church of England, told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that he had “every sympathy” with those who find the issue of immigration tricky. But he said Reform UK’s plan does “nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country”, and would in fact, make “the problem worse”.

Speaking on the same programme, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, responded to the archbishop’s criticisms, saying that “all of it is wrong”.

The MP for Boston and Skegness said he was a Christian who “enjoys” the church – but that the “role of the archbishop is not actually to interfere with international migration policies”.

Mr Tice then turned his fire on the government, accusing ministers of being “more interested in protecting the rights of people who’ve come here illegally… than looking after the rights of British citizens”.

He accused ministers of having “abandoned” their duty of “looking after the interests of British citizens”.

Mr Tice reaffirmed his party’s policy that the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), calling it a “70-year-old, out-of-date, unfit-for-purpose agreement”.

The Reform UK deputy leader also:

• Defended plans to pay the Taliban to take migrants back, comparing it to doing business deals with “people you don’t like”

• Said the Royal Navy should be deployed in the English Channel as a “deterrent”, but added: “We’re not saying sink the boats”

• Urged the government to call an early general election

Meanwhile, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told Sky News that Reform “want to provoke anger, but they don’t actually want to solve the problems that we face in front of us”.

She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the UK had a “proud tradition [of] supporting those facing persecution”.

But she added: “We will make sure that people who have no right to be in this country are removed from this country. That’s right. It’s what people expect. It’s what this government will deliver.”

Ms Phillipson also insisted there “needs to be reform of the ECHR” and said the home secretary is “looking at the article eight provisions”, which cover the right to a private and family life, to see “whether they need updating and reforming for the modern age”.

👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈

However, she refused to say what the government would do if it is found that the ECHR is unreformable. Instead, she defended Labour’s position of staying in the governance of the convention, saying that honouring the “rule of law” is important.

She added: “Our standing in the world matters if we want to strike trade deals with countries. We need to be a country that’s taken seriously. We need to be a country that honours our obligations and honours the rule of law.”

Ms Phillipson was also drawn on the recent court ruling in favour of the Home Office, which overturned an injunction banning The Bell Hotel in Epping from housing asylum seekers.

Challenged on whether the government is prioritising the rights of asylum seekers over British citizens, she said it “is about a balance of rights”.

The cabinet minister also repeated the government’s plans to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said the Conservatives would be willing to leave the ECHR – if this route is recommended to them.

The Tories have asked a senior judge to look into the “legal intricacies” of leaving the convention, which he said is “not straightforward”. He said when the party receives that report, it will then make a decision.

Challenged on whether the Tories will leave if that is what the report recommends, he added: “If that’s what’s necessary, we will do it.”

Mr Burghart also said he believed the previous Conservative government’s biggest mistake was that “we did not go far enough on overruling human rights legislation”, which prevented it from “taking the tough action that was absolutely necessary”.

But he added the Conservatives have now “put forward very clear legislation that would solve this problem” – though he concluded Labour “isn’t going to do it” so the problem “is going to get worse”.