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Nigel Farage has been caught rowing back on one of the boldest pledges of his Reform UK conference speech – that he would stop migrants crossing the English Channel “within two weeks” of taking power.

Speaking to party activists in Birmingham, Farage thundered:

“We will stop the boats and we will detain and deport those who illegally break into our country… You cannot come here illegally and stay. We will stop the boats within two weeks of winning government.”

But when pressed by Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, his tune changed. Suddenly, the two weeks would begin not from entering office – but from the moment his government passed an “Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill”, which would rip up international treaties like the Refugee Convention.

That could take months – possibly years. That’s before considering the inevitable legal challenges, international outcry, and logistical impossibilities of trying to detain and deport hundreds of thousands of people.

Farage tried to paper over the gap by pointing to Australia, which under Tony Abbott’s Liberal government did turn back boats – but even there it took months, and relied on offshore detention camps condemned worldwide for their human rights abuses.

So much for “two weeks”.

This is the classic Farage pattern: make a sweeping promise in front of the cameras, then quietly dilute it when somebody asks the obvious question – “how?”

The contradictions didn’t stop there. In the same weekend of interviews, Farage:

• Refused to publish his personal tax returns, even though Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have done so.

• Claimed he bought a house in Clacton before the last election – then backtracked, admitting it was his partner who had (possibly for tax reasons).

Farage likes to accuse other parties of telling voters “what they think the electorate want to hear without ever intending to deliver it”.

But isn’t that exactly what he does?

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