Nigel Farage warns 'problems are just beginning' as first migrants detained for Rwanda

Nigel Farage warned Rishi Sunak's "problems are just beginning" after the first migrants set to be deported to Rwanda were detained.

The former Ukip leader said it would be "virtually impossible" to track down many of those earmarked for deportation, while for those that are detained there will be legal challenges.

Speaking on his GB News show, Mr Farage said: "This Government is in desperate trouble, dire trouble; predictions of perhaps, in this coming general election, the worst results ever, in their nearly 200 years of existence.

“And Sunak knows this issue of people illegally crossing our borders and being allowed to stay is driving voters, particularly the red wall, mad.

"So the fact that today they've started rounding up a few people and detaining them, on the face of it, you have to give them credit for. I mean, several years too late, but on the face of it, let's give them credit.

“I suspect this is where the problems are just beginning. We will see all sorts of other people on that list simply disappear off into the community and be virtually impossible to find.

“And for those that we do have in detention and plan to take care of and that is when the lawyers and the judges will kick in.

"We are still signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). We've incorporated it into British law by the Human Rights Act. And whatever the Rwanda Act says, in terms of it taking supremacy over the Human Rights Act, I would tell you that when this comes to court, British judges will rule in favour of our international agreements.

“So it's all well and good, sounding tough, but can you actually deliver and I still really, really doubt it."

Mr Farage insisted the "only way" to get a grip on the small boats crisis is to leave the ECHR.

He said: “Look, I hope I'm wrong. I'm sick to death how every month we see these young men, undocumented young males of fighting age coming into our country about whom we know nothing of their backgrounds and their histories.

“I hope he can solve it. I just don't believe all the while we're part of that treaty, that it actually can happen and really, Brexit should have been about leaving this particular treaty as well. Sadly, it wasn't.

“I don't doubt amongst some of those that are crossing the English Channel, there are some genuinely fleeing persecution.

"But the wholesale abuse of our generosity, people pretending they're under 18 when they're in their 30s. People claiming to convert to Christianity from Islam, which of course we know they're not actually doing. People claiming they're gay, and therefore can't be sent back to the country that they claim to originally come from.

“The whole thing is a complete and utter racket. And I'd remind people since 2016, we have taken in half a million refugees. They've come from Hong Kong, they've come from Afghanistan, they’ve come back from Ukraine and elsewhere.

“It's not as if we’re not the most generous country out there because we are. What we cannot allow is for human traffickers to put people in danger is to cross the English Channel. 90% of them are male, 80% of them are very young males.

“This has got to stop and the only way we're going to stop it is by not being part of that European convention and by saying that nobody that comes via this route will ever be allowed to stay.

“That is what Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister of Australia did, back in 2013. Within two weeks, the boats stopped coming. That is the only way we're ever going to solve this and I believe that right from the start.”

His comments come as the Prime Minister wants to see flights to the east African nation off the ground by July after the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act became law last week.