Reform UK could take the government to court to prevent migrants being housed in areas where it now controls the local council, party chairman Zia Yusuf told the BBC.

Yusuf said his party had pledged to “resist” housing asylum seekers in Reform-controlled areas and it would use “every instrument of power available”, including judicial reviews, to fulfil its pledge.

The Home Office is responsible for housing adult asylum seekers and while councils can object, they have little power to stop it.

Reform gained more than 600 seats and took control of 10 local authorities in Thursday’s local elections.

Asked how Reform could fulfil its pledge to voters, given that contracts to house asylum seekers in hotels were drawn up between the Home Office and accommodation providers, Yusuf said the party was “realistic” about the challenge.

“The levers of power at a local level pale in comparison to the levers of power at Westminster,” he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.

But he said “those levers of power will be pulled with all our might by Reform councillors,” adding: “There are things you can do, there are judicial reviews, there are injunctions… things around planning, budget allocation.”

He told Laura Kuenssberg: “A lot of these hotels… you suddenly turn them into something else which is essentially a hostel that falls foul of any number of regulations – that’s what our teams of lawyers are exploring at the moment.”

Asked if Reform UK’s policy was to house migrants in tents, as the party’s newly elected Greater Lincolnshire mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns suggested, Yusuf said: “That’s what France does.”

He added: “We will be publishing a plan to deport everybody who is currently in this country illegally in our first term of government.

“We will publish that plan in the coming weeks and you’ll see the full detail.”

In 2021, Labour-controlled Coventry City Council and six other local authorities in the West Midlands took legal action against the Home Office over its asylum-seeker dispersal policy.

The policy involves moving asylum seekers to different council areas across the country to help spread the cost of supporting them.

But the legal action, known as a judicial review, was withdrawn after the Home Office promised “a new, fairer asylum dispersal system”.

The government says it is determined to end the use of asylum hotels over time and cut the “unacceptably high” costs of accommodation.

But figures from March show almost 40,000 migrants are still housed in hotels.

In his Laura Kuenssberg interview, Zia Yusuf also said that Reform councillors “will cut waste”, and will target spending on diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Challenged on how much money this would save, he said places like Lincolnshire County Council, which Reform won control of from the Conservatives, “do spend considerable money on DEI initiatives”.

He said Reform UK will “send teams in, task forces” and that “we’re now going to have access to the contracts and we’re going to make these changes.”

The Conservatives’ leader Kemi Badenoch said Reform had done well in Thursday’s polls because Nigel Farage was “expressing the feeling of frustration that a lot of people around the country are feeling”.

But she said he does not have a record in government and “now he is going to be running some councils – we’ll see how that goes”.

Asked if Farage could be the next prime minister, she said “anything is feasible”, noting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had won re-election this week after trailing in the polls.

But she added: “My job is to make sure that he [Farage] does not become prime minister because he does not have the answers to the problems the country is facing.”

Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he now treats Reform UK as a “serious opposition force”.

He told Sky News: “It’s not yet clear whether at the next general election it will be Reform or the Conservatives that are Labour’s main challengers, but we’ve got to take that threat seriously.”

“In that spirit, I think Reform does deserve more air time and scrutiny of their policies.”