Small boat migrants will eventually succeed in carrying out a terror attack, Zia Yusuf has warned. The Channel crisis is a “total and catastrophic political failure” that has become a “national security emergency”, the Reform home affairs spokesman said.

This, he said, was evidenced by a foiled plot to target the Israeli Embassy. At least one of the alleged plotters arrived by small boat, it has been claimed.

Mr Yusuf vowed to stop crossings by dramatically increasing surveillance in the Channel, ordering Royal Marines to tow dinghies back to France and to deport every illegal migrant in the UK if his party were to win the next election. Reform would legally back elite troops and the Border Force in intercepting dinghies, this newspaper was told.

Asked if he thought the small boats crisis had changed the security picture in the UK, Mr Yusuf said: “I do.

“And the evidence for that is there was an attempted terrorist attack where the perpetrators, the people who tried to commit that atrocity that was successfully averted by the security services, did come here on small boats.

“Let’s just look at the countries from which these people are coming. Who are the countries at the top of the league table? Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan.

“These are not countries, let’s put it mildly, with the best track record in terms of being friendly to Britain. Do we think they have our interests at heart?

“Over the last eight years, the number of people who have come here illegally from those countries, fighting-aged men, has outnumbered the British Army.

“So, I think it is a national security emergency in many ways.”

Asked if he feared a successful terror attack could be carried out by small boat arrivals, Mr Yusuf said: “It seems like that’s a tragically, and devastatingly, likely thing to potentially happen.

“Our security services do an incredible job under extremely difficult circumstances.

“I believe they’re vastly under-resourced. I don’t think it helps them at all that we’ve had pathetically cowardly political leaders who are just allowing people, as I said, to turn up on our beaches.”

If Reform wins the next election, a new ‘UK Deportation Command’ will use data from banks, the Home Office, HMRC, police, DVLA and NHS to identify every illegal migrant.

They will then be offered £2,500 each to leave the UK during a six-month grace period.

Once the voluntary returns programme comes to an end, immigration enforcement teams will be ordered to carry out raids and detain them.

New laws introduced in a planned Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill will bar illegal migrants from claiming asylum, and the Home Secretary will have a legal duty to remove them.

Reform will also leave the European Convention on Human Rights, and disapply other pieces of human rights laws, such as the Refugee Convention, to allow five deportation flights every day.

Mr Yusuf vowed “no judge in the country” will be able to prevent removal flights from leaving.

And he told the Daily Express the small boats crisis represents “total and catastrophic political failure”.

He added: “We will stop the invasion, we’ll stop the boats.

“We’re always going to deport everyone who’s in the country illegally, because it’s completely unfair on people watching this and listening to this, who wake up early, go to work, pay their taxes, play by the rules, teach their children the difference between right and wrong, that people can just break in and not only get to stay under the Labour and Tory governments, but also get free accommodation and in some cases, four star hotels, free meals, free healthcare, free taxis, free leisure activities, free golf days, free trips to the cinema.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, speaking to the Daily Express during a press conference, said the Royal Marines could be ordered to tow migrant boats back to France.

He said: “Under the international law of the sea, what you do with people in distress is take them back to the nearest, safest port.

“And frankly, if you are literally on the boundary line between here and Calais, we would have absolutely every right to take boats back to Calais, that being the nearest and safest place. So, there’s no difficulty with any of this.”

An inquiry into the deaths of 27 migrants in November 2021 revealed how the French Government became increasingly irate over plans to intercept and turn back migrant dinghies.

They claimed it would be illegal because it puts lives at risk. They sensationally stopped talking to senior British officials about the Channel crisis because of the diplomatic spat over pushbacks, the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal and Brexit.

But Reform’s plan to leave the ECHR will give Border Force and the Royal Navy the protections they would need, Mr Yusuf said.

Mr Yusuf added: “We are going to leave the ECHR, we are going to derogate from a whole host of international treaties.

“We are going to appeal the Quality Act and replace it, we are going to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with something that is fit for purpose.

“All of these things, if you actually speak to people in operational duty, in our navy, in the army, in the police.

“They will tell you that these are things that loom over them, and these are just ordinary men and women, great people who are trying to do their jobs.

“We are going to have their backs. We are going to sort the legislation out inside our first year.”

Speaking at a press conference in Dover, Mr Yusuf listed what he said were examples of judges blocking the deportation of illegal migrants who had committed crimes.

“How many more people must die at the hands of those who should never have been in our country in the first place?” he said.

“How many more victims’ families must be devastated in this way when their rights are placed beneath those of criminals?

“The answer is none, Vote Reform. We will leave the ECHR and end this madness.”