Reform UK leader unveils blueprint for how he will stop inmates being released early amid jail overcrowding crisis
Nigel Farage proposes policy to deport foreign offenders
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, held a press conference on Monday (August 10), setting out plans to remove all foreigners from British prisons to end overcrowding. This would mean there is no longer any need to release prisoners early, the Reform UK leader will say.
Along with his home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, Mr Farage said “all” 10,000 foreign nationals in UK jails will either be sent back to their home countries or to a prison in a third country, such as El Salvador. The British Government would pay for this, but it would cost half as much to house a foreign national offender abroad than in the UK, Mr Farage said.
Mr Yusuf said foreign national criminals who are sent to countries such as El Salvador “will not be able to return” to Britain after their release. Reform UK will send a party delegation – including Lee Anderson and Vanessa Frake, a former prison governor – to El Salvador “soon” to discuss the party’s plans to deport foreign offenders to the country to free up prison places in Britain.
Reform UK also outlined plans to create temporary “Nightingale” prisons, similar to the Nightingale hospitals set up during the COVID pandemic. These would be housed on former MoD sites that have since fallen out of use, but no specific sites have been named. Only lower-level offenders would be kept in these prisons – not rapists or murderers, Mr Yusuf clarified.
It comes as the row over the potential early release of the killers of PC Andrew Harper continues.
Reform has announced plans to send foreign national criminals to prisons in El Salvador to end overcrowding in UK prisons (Image: Getty)
Labour says Reform’s prison announcement is not ‘serious’
In response to Reform’s press conference, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “This isn’t a serious prison plan. Nigel Farage knows full well that renting prison places overseas would take years to arrange and does nothing to tackle the pressures we face now.
“While Reform chase headlines, this Labour government is getting on with the job – building 14,000 additional prison places and removing foreign criminals at pace. Almost 10,000 foreign criminals have been removed since the election, up 36% on the previous 21 months.
“Farage can try to change the subject all her likes, but he still needs to come clean about his secret £5 million “gift” from his crypto billionaire backer. The public deserves to know who is funding Reform, and why.”