The government of left-wing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should look to deport foreign criminals currently imprisoned in Britain rather than releasing prisoners back onto the streets, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage argued.
Around another 1,100 criminals are in the process of being freed from prison early after serving just 40 per cent of their sentences amid the continuing scheme by the leftist Labour government to free up space in jails for freshly sentenced criminals. The early release scheme will supposedly not include those in prison for violent, sex, or terrorist crimes.
The Starmer government began to release criminals early over the summer as it sought to make room for people involved in the anti-mass migration riots and protests following the Southport stabbing, which saw three young girls killed and several others injured.
According to the BBC, Downing Street is also considering plans to empower judges to sentence criminals to “prison outside prison” in an apparently new form of house arrest.
Rebuking the early release scheme, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wrote on X: “Another 1,000+ prisoners will be released today who have served just 40% of their sentences.
“Let’s just deport the 10,000 foreign criminals in our jails instead.”
Farage’s deputy, MP Richard Tice, said that in light of the population explosion — mostly driven by mass migration — the government needs to build more prisons and should focus on proper rehabilitation programmes.
However, Tice said that in the short term, deporting foreigners taking up space in British jails would be a “much better” solution than simply releasing criminals early back into communities.
“We don’t want to release bad people back into society when there is a much better, faster solution that would have greater support from the British public and would save the taxpayer billions of pounds,” the Reform UK deputy leader told Sky News.
As of March, foreigners reportedly made up around 12 per cent of the total prison population in England and Wales, equating to 10,422 people. Each foreign inmate costs the taxpayer £47,000 to feed, house, and rehabilitate, or around £500 million per year.
A Downing Street spokesman said that Prime Minister Starmer “shares the public’s anger” but claimed that “there was no choice not to act”.
“If we had not acted, we would have faced a complete paralysis of the system.”