Last month Nigel Farage unveiled Reform’s wannabe crime “strategy”. It is of course as unrealistic and ridiculous as, for instance, their economic and health policies.
Once again, few people who actually know about the subject really seems to believe it can work – but that doesn’t stop Farage repeating his endless misinformed and/or dishonest soundbites.
Firstly, he starts with his usual fear-mongering. “Project Fear”, some might call it. He claims that “over the past 20 years, crime has become commonplace across Britain” to the extent that Britain, in an astonishingly unpatriotic claim, is “facing societal collapse”, and that crime is 50% higher than it was in the 1990s.
Exposing his lies, the Office of National Statistics disagrees
Crime against individuals and households has generally decreased over the last 10 years with some notable exceptions, such as sexual assault.
How does Farage explain this away? With his usual conspiracy-addled claims – this time that the survey the ONS uses is “based on completely false data”. He wants us to use some subset of police-recorded crime that may or may not better suit his narrative.
But:
In fact, the Office for National Statistics regards the crime survey for England and Wales as the more accurate metric of long-term crime trends, because it includes incidents that haven’t been reported to the police and is unaffected by changes in how crime is recorded. It is unclear what Farage’s claim that it is based on “completely false data” is founded on.
The Economist also reports that despite some types of crime increasing, crime is “overall it is still down by 75% since 1995”
How has this massive yet non-existent rise in crime been allowed to happen? Because all the other parties are too forgetful or scared to mention crime apparently.
Farage is:
“astonished there’s been so little debate in Westminster amongst all the political classes on this issue”
Labour and the Conservatives put pledges on crime at the centre of their manifestos in the run-up to the July 2024 election, and both parties are spending a considerable amount of time debating and legislating in this area.
One of the government’s five driving “missions” is to halve serious violent crime and raise confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest level.
In practice, it is apparently his own party, Reform, that is standing in the way of enacting real anti-crime legislation.
Ellie Reeves from the Labour party reminds us that:
Nigel Farage repeatedly tried to block tough measures to make our streets safer. Reform is more interested in headline-chasing than serious policy-making in the interests of the British people. Farage’s Reform MPs voted against the Labour Government’s landmark Crime and Policing Bill which tackles antisocial behaviour, shoplifting, violence against women and girls, knife crime, and child abuse.
Anyway, Farage’s crime policies include constructing 5 “Nightingale” prisons, deporting 10,000 foreign criminals, recruiting 30,000 more police officers and so on.
Building more prisons and and recruiting more police officers are policies that successive governments have already espoused. There’s nothing new here. In fact, after successive recruitment drives, some say that hiring more police officers might be reaching its limit in terms of likelihood of cutting crime
Labour will hire another 13,000 officers by 2029. Police chiefs are hardly calling for more beyond that. “It would have diminishing returns and wouldn’t cut crime much at all,” reckons Graham Farrell of Leeds University.
Never one to come up with an original policy that hasn’t already been blessed by his idol, Donald Trump, he adds sending people to El Salvador & other countries to the mix. Apparently without thinking to mention his plan to El Salvador first.
He believes that this will halve crime within 5 years.
Channelling Robocop, he exclaims that:
If you’re a criminal, I am putting you on notice today that from 2029 or whenever that may be, either you obey the law or you will face very serious justice.
Apparently unaware, once again, that it is already a crime to break the law, and so many people are jailed for doing so that our prisons are bursting at the seams.
Totally misunderstanding their place in society, Farage would like it if the public were “fearful” of police.
If one is to take Reform MP Sarah Pochin at her word, part of this would involve reducing the number of female police officers out on the beat. Only the (male) Incredible Hulk need apply apparently.
“I never feel comfortable actually seeing two female police officers together
…
I think they look vulnerable.
I think that we do need to be aware of our police being able to protect us that’s what they’re there for.”
Because we’re no longer living in the 19th century, many organisations have pushed back against this diminution of the value that women bring the to police.
Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, hit back at the claims by saying that female officers were “critical” to tackling crime.
…
“There are no roles in policing which women cannot do, and the same exacting standards to qualify are met by all men and women who undertake some of the most challenging tasks of any profession.”
And
One chief constable told the Guardian that not just chiefs were annoyed, but rank-and-file officers also: “It takes us back 30 years, and it has annoyed my work force as well. To suggest women officers are not equal because they are not of a certain size and shape, is a disservice.”
Quite possibly Reform simply didn’t bother to look into what the job of the police actually is. In reality. believe it or not, it’s not all burly blokes punching foreign looking people in the face.
The chief said physical confrontation was nowadays a “minuscule” part of the job and women were also more likely to make an arrest without the need for force.
Reform estimates the cost of their policies as being £17.4 billion.
How could the country possibly afford to do this? Of course it’s back to the usual “scrap net zero” soundbites. Even if this money did exist and scrapping these policies wouldn’t be entirely economically self-defeating, I can’t count how many times he has re-spent this same imaginary money.
In any case, is numbers are apparently as fictional as the rest of the scheme. Mel Stride of the Conservatives highlights one example: that the real cost of providing a prison place is at least 60% higher than Reform are claiming.
“This isn’t a manifesto – it’s a fantasy, written on the back of a fag packet. Farage’s numbers are billions out. You don’t halve crime with wishful thinking. You do it with a real plan, real costs, and real leadership. Britain needs serious leadership, not amateur hour.”
He also appears to have “misunderstood” how much cost is involved in building prisons:
Mr Farage’s costs seem to be based on an outdated quote for “rapid deployment cells”, prefabricated units which have been craned into existing prisons in small batches. Five new sites would cost much more and take longer.
And the last time our government (regrettably) looked into irresponsibly offloading British criminals into foreign lands – yes, this too is famously not a new idea – it cost rather more than what Farage is telling us.
Based on Mr Farage’s back-of-a-fag-packet sums, it could be done for £25,000 per prisoner per year. Under the last government, discussions with Estonia ended because the costs were roughly ten times that.
As the Economist notes, even aside from the unworkability and incompetence of his plans:
…these policies add yet more dubious numbers to tax and spending plans that already look primed to cause a Liz Truss-style panic in the markets
Perhaps this comes as no surprise. Farage, of course, is famous for being a tremendous fan of Liz Truss’ disastrous economic plan that ended up finishing her career and weakened our country so.