Reform's proposals for a 'British ICE' would normalise fascism

Homes and workplaces would become sites of state coercion under the proposals announced by Zia Yusuf for a UK Deportation Command.

Is Donald Trump a fascist?

British commentators strain to avoid the word. They ponder and offer caveats, wary of uttering something irreversible, especially about a democratically elected leader and ally in the West.

Yes, he attacks the independence of the Supreme Court, “jokes” about a third term, and incites an insurrection. Yes, he threatens the press, kidnaps world leaders, and sanctions masked men to round up and disappear Americans in broad daylight. But fascism? Well, let’s not say anything we can’t take back.

Watching from the other side of the Atlantic, we Brits reassure ourselves that, however ugly it looks over there, it just couldn’t happen here.

Yet there was an unmistakable transatlantic flavour to Reform UK’s press conference in Dover yesterday. Zia Yusuf, introduced as the party’s “shadow home secretary” (a title that has no formal meaning when Reform is certainly not His Majesty’s Opposition) unveiled plans for a “UK Deportation Command.”

If you want the blueprint, look to Trump, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] became both a tool and theatre: high-profile raids, families separated, neighbours and colleagues disappeared. On two separate occasions, US-born citizens were shot dead.

Reform’s proposals would detain up to 24,000 people at any one time and deport as many as 288,000 a year. Indefinite leave to remain could be retrospectively revoked. There would be automatic home searches for certain Prevent referrals and “visa freezes” for countries that refuse to cooperate.

The scale alone marks a dramatic break from the present situation. As of last spring, the UK had roughly 2,500 immigration detention spaces. Expanding that almost tenfold would be the construction of a massive new machine, dramatically extending the coercive reach of the state.

And this is why language matters. The words Yusuf and Reform chose are as important as the policy itself. They repeatedly describe immigration as an “invasion”, talking of “fighting-age men” arriving in small boats. This is no accident. It frames the complex web of asylum claims, labour migration, and bureaucratic delays as an attack on Britain, and primes the public to accept measures that would otherwise feel shocking.

Words soften the ground for cruelty before a single policy is enacted.

Zia Yusuf Pic: Reform UK

Progressives cannot shy away from language in response. To call Reform’s plans “tough” or “serious” is cowardly, just as calling them “controversial” shrinks from the abhorrence of it all. To fight this corrosive politics, we have to call a spade a spade: this is punitive, ethnonationalist, and yes, it reeks of fascism.

Which brings us back to the question everyone hesitates to answer. Is Donald Trump a fascist? Yes.

The word makes people flinch because it sounds definitive. We perhaps prefer to reserve it for dictatorships already complete, not democratic backsliding in progress. But fascism does not arrive fully formed and ready for unboxing: it creeps up through the normalisation of cruelty, the concentration of power, and the framing of minorities and opponents as existential threats. It thrives when we convince ourselves plain language would be impolite, so we shroud its presence in ambiguity, justification and debate.

Interestingly, Yusuf hand-waved away comparisons between his proposals and the US. Britain polices “by consent,” so officers would not be armed. But consent is murky when the state is omnipresent and punitive. Dawn raids, workplace checks, home searches, these expansions of surveillance are the building blocks of coercion, guns or no guns.

The parallels to the USA’s slow descent extend beyond immigration. Today, Richard Tice has promised a “Great Repeal Bill” to dismantle Labour’s employment and renters’ rights and roll back net zero commitments. The name itself suggests bold reform, resets, and progress, rather than what it is: stripping protections from the lowest-paid and most vulnerable or eroding environmental safeguards. Once again, words are priming the public to tolerate what would otherwise feel unjust.

In the United States, hard borders coexist alongside weak worker protections. At-will firing, low union membership, and minimal statutory leave all mean the state is forceful when policing outsiders and conspicuously absent when protecting workers. This is a pattern familiar in fascist regimes, where coercion is selective: controlling some while privileging others.

To warn of what could come with a Reform government, the language we use to describe these things matters. We can continue to reassure ourselves that Britain is different, that our institutions and traditions will insulate us from the chaos visible in the US. Or we can recognise the familiar playbook, describe it clearly, and refuse to let language be weaponised to make the unacceptable seem ordinary.

If you want to see where the road of normalisation leads, you don’t have to imagine it. Just look west. ■

About the author: Zoë Grünewald is Westminster Editor at The Lead and a freelance political journalist and broadcaster.

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