Reform UK Plans £17.4bn Crime Reduction, New Prisons, Overseas Offenders

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has unveiled an ambitious £17.4 billion plan to halve crime in Britain within five years if his party is elected. Central to the plan is recruiting 30,000 additional police officers and building over 12,000 new prison places on Ministry of Defence land, alongside creating new “Nightingale Prisons” with army assistance. Farage proposes a zero-tolerance, New York-style crackdown on crime that includes ending early release for serious offenders and introducing saturation stop-and-search in high-crime areas. A controversial aspect of the plan is to deport foreign criminals to their countries of origin and potentially send some offenders to serve time in overseas prisons, including El Salvador’s supermax facilities, though talks with those authorities are ongoing. Farage acknowledges that much of the program hinges on the UK leaving the European Court of Human Rights to implement harsher justice measures. Critics question the feasibility and funding of these promises, but Farage insists tackling crime is urgent and more cost-effective than the current situation.