Nigel Farage unveils Reform's plans to deport foreign criminals to Kosovo and El Salvador as he slams Andy Burnham for 'being about to release PC Harper's killers early'
Nigel Farage has unveiled plans to deport foreign criminals to Kosovo and El Salvador should the party win the next General Election as he took aim at the release of the killers of PC Andrew Harper.
Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers are eligible to be freed halfway through their 13-year prison sentences, having been convicted of manslaughter in 2020 following PC Harper’s death in 2019.
Mr Farage said he has opened talks with the government of El Salvador on potentially renting prison spaces.
Party chairman Lee Anderson and justice advisor Vanessa Frake are expected to lead a delegation to the Central American country within months to conduct further feasibility discussions.
The Reform leader said: "In the wake of the PC Harper case, the Prime Minister’s instincts were, 'Well of course, they shouldn’t be released early'. But once he’s told the practical facts of life, he has to back away and back down. Certainly it’s true that Labour have inherited a very, very difficult situation. But they don’t-they don’t appear to have the imagination or the will to solve it.
"We send people back to their country of origin, so it needs a phone call with Edi Rama from Albania. And if they refuse, we then send foreign national offenders off to third countries.
"Kosovo is perhaps one good example currently being used by Sweden, and we are organising a trip to El Salvador. And by the way, not all of the prisons are the cages that you’ve seen on television."
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Zia Yusuf says Reform will embarked on the 'fastest expansion' of prison estate since 19th century
Zia Yusuf said Reform will "embark on the fastest expansion of the prison estate since the Victorian era."
The party's home affairs spokesman said: "Here at home, we will rapidly build capacity.
"We will take advantage of new prefabricated modular technology and build 12,000 prison places in the form of Nightingale prisons on Ministry of Defence land, and the army will be called in to assist.
"Together, these measures will create an additional 22,000 prison places compared to Andy Burnham’s plans."
Lee Anderson and Vanessa Frake to visit El Salvador
Nigel Farage confirmed party chairman Lee Anderson and justice advisor Vanessa Frake will visit El Salvador to survey the prison situation.
The Reform leader said: "Under a Reform Government foreign criminals will serve their sentences abroad, not on British soil.
"We will transfer all foreign criminals to serve their sentence at home or in another country, freeing up 10,000 prison spaces, and build 12,000 Nightingale prison places within 18 months to create the prison capacity necessary to keep dangerous criminals behind bars."
Nigel Farage is up as he blasts 'lawless Britain'
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is up for a press conference as he blasted "lawless Britain."
He said: "Prison sentencing has proved to be Andy Burnham's first big test.
"We need to face some serious facts. During 14 years of Conservative government through mass immigration, net population rose by six million people.
"We built 455 new prison places. Early release isn't some new idea that this Labour government came up with, it was the Conservatives."
Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf to hold prisons press conference
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf will hold a press conference this morning to lay out plans to deport every single foreign national offender from British jails within months of taking power.
Mr Yusuf previously vowed to "change the law so that those who commit serious crimes like murder, manslaughter, rape and serious violence serve their full sentences".
We'll bring you all the updates here on the live blog and on GB News.
Zack Polanski slams Andy Burnham for 'gross negligence' over North Sea oil drilling
Green Party leader Zack Polanski has accused Andy Burnham of "gross negligence" as he accused the Prime Minister of "weasel words" on approval of more North Sea drilling.
Mr Polanski said: "We are now facing the fifth heatwave in months following the recent deaths of 3,000 people in our country from extreme weather conditions.”
"This is the greatest crisis this country has faced since the Second World War and to complacently dismiss the demands for immediate action by saying everything is under control is gross negligence, blatantly untrue and misses the severity of the crisis.
"Only days after dedicated public servants talked about the need for urgent action, backed up by indisputable science, to secure our food supplies and the health of the most vulnerable, the Labour government says it’s all in hand, and supply chains are resilient."
He continued: "In the midst of a heatwave fuelled by the climate crisis, the science is clear that more North Sea drilling would be a dereliction of duty by Labour.
"Whatever weasel words are used on drilling within new or existing licences, one of the new Prime Minister’s first significant decisions would be to break Labour’s manifesto pledge.
"In their own analysis, Jackdaw’s owners have themselves said that only 27 direct full time jobs would be created if given the go ahead.
"This has nothing to do with boosting the economy for the people of this country and far more to do with boosting obscene profits for fossil fuel companies and their shareholders."
Mega dinghy carrying RECORD number of illegal migrants reaches Britain as 230 cross Channel
A mega dinghy carrying 230 people crossed the English Channel overnight on a single dinghy, breaking the previous record.
It comes as over 950 small boat migrants arrived in Dover across the weekend, GB News can exclusively reveal.
The weekend's crossings come after a five-day pause in Channel arrivals, with calmer conditions providing a fresh opportunity for people smugglers to launch boats from the French coast.
This morning's crossing made it the largest single vessel to attempt to cross the Channel carrying migrants, breaking the previous record of 165.
Alex Burghart blasts Andy Burnham as 'unprepared to take difficult decisions' over prisoner release
Alex Burghart has blasted Labour as being "unprepared to take difficult decisions" as he launched a furious attack on the early prisoners release scheme.
The Shadow Duchy of Lancaster told GB News: "We would build more prisons rapidly. We would make sure that we rented new places, you know, particularly in countries like Estonia. I think Sweden has just bought a whole load of prison places off Estonia.
"So we would do that and we would deport a whole load of foreign criminals who are in our jails.
"[Labour] is just going to release very dangerous people, including people. It turns out you you're responsible for the death of policemen to come out into the community, and there will be a consequence to that.
"My constituents in Brentwood and Ongar in Essex, they don't want to see these people released. They shouldn't be released.
"There are alternatives, but Labour aren't going to take those alternatives. Andy Burnham, I don't think, is prepared to take the difficult decisions around this to to solve the problem."
RECAP: Nigel Farage's Reform drops to third in bombshell poll as Labour and Tories storm ahead
Nigel Farage's Reform UK has fallen behind both Labour and the Tories in a bombshell new opinion poll.
The survey, conducted by ex-Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft, found Reform UK's support has dropped to its lowest level since the 2024 General Election at just 18 per cent.
Meanwhile, Andy Burnham's Labour continues to rise steadily in the polls, climbing from 21 per cent to 27 per cent.
Mr Farage is also languishing behind Kemi Badenoch's Tories, with the Conservatives now on 23 per cent.
Zia Yusuf says 'the message is simple' for foreign criminals
Zia Yusuf has told GB News "the message is simple" as he laid out Reform's foreign criminal demands.
The party's home affairs spokesman said: "If you are a foreign national offender, if you're a foreign national and you don't want to go to jail in El Salvador, for example, don't come to Britain and commit serious crimes.
"Simple as that."
Andy Burnham to begin 'everyday fixes' tour
Andy Burnham will begin his summer cost-of-living tour on Monday pledging to provide "everyday fixes" for rising bills.
The Prime Minister intends to spend much of the rest of August travelling the country asking the public how the Government can improve their lives.
Officials have said he will be in "listening mode", with a focus on tackling the cost of living and improving local high streets.
Mr Burnham is expected to announce a series of "everyday fixes" to reduce costs, promising to "pull every single lever we can to provide people with some room to breathe on the cost of living".
On Monday, he will accelerate plans to tackle "subscription traps" by requiring companies to make it easier to cancel subscriptions and provide more information about costs up-front rather than quietly auto-renewing them at a higher price.
Senior Liberal Democrat blasts Labour's early prisoner release scheme
A senior Liberal Democrat has slammed Andy Burnham's early release scheme as she called on Labour to build more prison spaces.
The MP for North Shropshire Helen Morgan told GB News: "I think everybody's very concerned about the early release scheme, particularly where there are people who might have been domestic abusers.
"We've heard about the killers of PC Harper. I think people are very concerned about those prisoners being released early, but the reality is we haven't built any new prisons for many, many years, and spaces need to be protected so that the rest of the system can function.
"We'd like to see the government protect some of those types of crimes, those types of criminals, from being released into the community because they're clearly dangerous.
"But we need to get on, as you say, and provide the prison spaces so that we don't have to face this early release problem."
Reform UK in talks with El Salvador to deport all migrant criminals to nation's infamous jails
Reform UK has pledged to deport all foreign nationals from Britain’s prisons, with discussions reportedly underway to free up prison spaces by sending offenders to El Salvador should the party gain power.
Unveiling Reform’s prisons policy late on Sunday, the party’s Home Affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf vowed to "change the law so that those who commit serious crimes like murder, manslaughter, rape and serious violence serve their full sentences".
He said: "Unbelievably, there are over 10,000 foreign nationals in British jails.
"We will deport all foreign nationals from our jails. If their home countries won’t take them back we will send them to serve their sentences in countries like El Salvador and Kosovo.
"We will use the space created to ensure that serious criminals stay where they belong. Behind bars."
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