Farage Targets Law & Order

Despite consistently riding high in the opinion polls, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is beset by two major challenges which could scupper victory come the next general election. Firstly, there is Farage’s obvious inability to share the limelight - as witnessed by historic high-profile fallouts with colleagues all the way back to the days of UKIP, and more recently with Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe. Secondly, and arguably more seriously, there is his Achilles’ heel - Islam. Farage may have made his political bread and butter by his tough stance on immigration, but many supporters feel this has softened of late - particularly via comments such as mass deportations are not his “ambition”, and “If we alienate the whole of Islam, we will lose”.

Farage’s latest incursion into law and order however, could be just the tonic to steady the Reform UK ship. At a press conference in central London on Monday, Farage promised to make Reform UK “the toughest party on law and order and on crime that this country has ever seen”. Here is a brief summary of the major policy points:

Crime reduction

Overall, Farage has pledged that Reform UK would aim to halve crime within five years if they win the next general election.

Policing

Farage aims to recruit 30,000 additional police officers over a five-year term, with a focus on fast-tracking military veterans and prioritising ‘higher and physically tougher’ standards for officers to enhance the police street presence.

Pop-up custody centres

Reform would establish 100 temporary custody centres in crime hotspots, to fast-track arrests and processing. The estimated cost is £80 million per year.

Zero-tolerance policing

Modelled on Rudy Giuliani’s successful focus on low-level crime in New York, Farage plans to prosecute all crime, including every shoplifting offence (reversing the perceived leniency of the £200 shoplifting threshold) to restore public confidence in policing. Farage confirmed that all violent crime and knife possession would result in jail sentences, with expanded use of stop-and-search in high crime areas as a deterrent to knife crime.

An end to early release

Farage has vowed to end the early release scheme for serious violent, sexual or knife crime offenders, ensuring there are no suspended sentences.

An end to DEI roles

Reform promises to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion roles in policing to redirect resources toward frontline law enforcement, arguing that such roles distract from core policing duties.

Life sentences for persistent offenders

Farage promises to impose life imprisonment for drug traffickers, and repeat violent offenders.

Prisons

If elected, Reform UK is looking to create 30,000 new prison places, including 12,400 for lower-category offenders built on Ministry of Defence land within 18 months at an estimated cost of £1 billion.

Deporting foreign criminals

In addition to the UK-side increase in prison places, Reform will aim to deport 10,400 foreign prisoners to their countries of origin - thereby freeing up British prison space, and reducing the cost to the UK taxpayer. Notably, these negotiations would necessitate the acceptance of British offenders held abroad.

Overseas prisons

Farage intends to send serious offenders such as murderers and paedophiles to countries like El Salvador and Albania, thereby creating an additional 10,000 prison places at an annual cost of £250 million.

Cost

All of which in total, Reform estimates will cost the taxpayer £17.4 billion over a five-year term. This would be funded by scrapping HS2, Net Zero policies, and reducing the size of the public sector.

You can watch the full press conference here:

On the back of Monday’s press conference, Farage also made a surprising incursion into Essex Police’s handling of last week’s protest outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, where he came out unequivocally in favour of the protestors. The protest was sparked, unsurprisingly, as yet another ‘asylum seeker’ allegedly sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1947975034967863739

While this will have been music to the ears of the party faithful and Farage-sceptics alike, this is notable because Farage has always been careful to eschew political alignment with the so-called ‘far-right’ - famously so in the case of Tommy Robinson.

Perhaps this is evidence that the Overton Window has widened sufficiently on the issue of immigration, that Farage now feels comfortable enough to re-embrace his former tough stance. On the other hand, this may be a more cynical calculation to avoid haemorrhaging votes to the right. With Restore Britain (Rupert Lowe’s new movement) and Advance UK (Ben Habib’s fledgling party) gaining support among former diehard Reform UK supporters - and possibly about to be joined by Tommy Robinson himself - it is unlikely there is no politicking involved from Farage’s side.

Either way, Reform and Farage are clearly reading the room and the nation correctly on the matter of law and order. At least for the foreseeable future, this is the correct move and may well see Reform UK surge even further in the opinion polls.

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(Photograph: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)