Reform UK has proposed training council inspectors to conduct immigration checks during routine visits to businesses and premises, as part of Operation Restoring Justice, published on October 12, 2026. The opposition party says the checks would add an enforcement tool to inspections already carried out by local authorities.
The proposal covers food hygiene staff, fire safety officers, trading standards and licensing officials, among others. They would check premises as part of their existing duties.
Information gathered would go to two proposed bodies, a “Deportation Command” and a “Migrant Identification Centre.” Councils would be encouraged to take part by receiving a share of fines imposed on employers of workers without permission, with the money also used to hire more inspectors.
Unions say the plan would place a new and sensitive enforcement function on workers already responsible for public safety. Reform says the task could be added to routine visits.
The proposal would add screening to visits councils already make
The party’s policy calls for basic checks during food hygiene visits, non-domestic fire safety audits, workplace health and safety inspections and other regulatory visits. It argues inspectors could identify people without permission to remain or work in the UK, rather than leaving that work solely to dedicated enforcement visits.
Reform says the checks could be incorporated “easily” because they “do not require highly technical qualifications.” Its proposal also points to the volume of existing inspections as evidence that the approach could widen enforcement activity.
| Activity cited in the party’s policy | Visits or inspections |
|---|---|
| Illegal-working visits in 2025 | 12,791 |
| Food hygiene visits | 350,000 |
| Non-domestic fire safety audits | 51,020 |
| Health and Safety Executive workplace inspections | 13,200 |
Reform estimates the proposal could expand enforcement capacity by between ten and forty times. That is the party’s projection, not an independently established result, and it does not mean Reform has pledged to recruit forty times as many immigration officers.
Union leaders say the added task needs specialist training
Andrea Egan, Unison general secretary, condemned the idea of assigning the work to council staff and said inspectors were already overstretched.
“The idea of conscripting council workers to a Trump-style deportation police force is absurd and sinister in equal measure. Food inspectors, fire safety officers and their colleagues work every day to protect us all from harm and are already seriously overstretched. Reform's back-of-a-fag-packet proposals would risk public safety. They're part of a nasty campaign targeting our migrant friends, neighbours and colleagues. The very people who do so much to keep our public services, and our whole country, running. This racist agenda is completely contrary to the values of public service workers, and Unison will continue to oppose it every step of the way.”
The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents UK government workers, said immigration officers perform a “highly specialised” role. It pointed to the training and legal knowledge involved, as well as the intelligence work and decisions that can carry serious legal and human consequences.
A union spokesperson said the proposal misunderstood the work its members do. The spokesperson added: “Reform's suggestion that immigration checks do not require technical expertise and can simply be added to the responsibilities of any public sector inspector fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the work our members perform. It also demonstrates a clear disregard for the need for humane, lawful and properly-trained approaches to immigration enforcement.”
The mayor of a London council that became the first local authority in the UK to refuse Home Office assistance with immigration raids earlier this year described the plan as an “intensification of the hostile environment.” The council was not identified in the material describing that response.
Farage and Jenrick defend a wider enforcement drive
Nigel Farage set out the council proposal in an article published on October 13, 2026. “We'll give councils the power to run immigration checks when they inspect premises such as restaurants and domestic properties,” he wrote. He said his party would use “every organ of the state” to make it impossible for people to remain in the country illegally.
The wider programme includes restricting universal credit, housing benefit, free childcare and most non-contributory benefits to British citizens. It also proposes a “Deliveroo Law” that would make bosses of large companies personally and criminally liable for profiting from illegal working, ending the use of migrant hotels and closing all “resettlement” schemes.
Other measures Farage described include leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, repealing the Human Rights Act, passing an Illegal Migration (Mass Deportations) Bill and disapplying the 1951 Refugee Convention. He said countries that refuse to take back their nationals could face visa bans or tariffs, with third-country deals used “in extreme cases.”
Robert Jenrick said in a post on X on October 12, 2026, that councils refusing to cooperate with immigration enforcement under a Reform government would receive no public funds. “Our borders aren't optional,” he wrote.
His post said at least seven London councils had said they would not collaborate. It described Newham as the first Labour-led local authority to adopt that position “last week,” after Lewisham, Lambeth, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Southwark and Haringey.
The plan remains a proposal, with safeguards unresolved
The measures are proposals from an opposition party, not government policy, and have not been enacted. The proposal leaves implementation questions open, including how inspectors would be trained, how data protection would work and what safeguards would apply.
Reform says councils could use their share of employer fines to recruit more inspectors. Its policy does not settle how the new duties would fit into the regulatory visits those workers already perform.
