Nigel Farage has been accused of putting forward a "not serious" prison plan after vowing to launch a Donald Trump-like scheme to send prisoners to El Salvador. The Reform UK chief announced that former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson will be part of a delegation visiting the South American country later this year for talks. If it went ahead, he claimed, more than 10,000 prisoners from overseas would serve their full sentence in another country.
Reform's proposal
The party also claims convicts would not be able to return to the UK once they are released. But asked what would happen if a convict's homeland refused to take them back, home affairs chief Zia Yusuf responded: "So the direct answer to your question comes down to negotiations with those foreign governments."
Mr Farage also claimed that if he was PM, he would oversee 12,000 places become available in new so-called 'Nightingale' prisons - named after the temporary hospitals built during the Covid pandemic. At a press conference in Westminster he said these would be "frankly, pretty cheap", and added: "They would be very basic, and we have to admit that. There might not be too many colour TVs, we have to admit that. But the actual construction side is very, very small money."
Labour's response
Following his announcement, a Labour 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."
Prison overcrowding
The government is grappling with the shortage of prison places left by the Tories. Around 97% of usable prison space is full in England and Wales. US President Trump struck a deal with El Salvador to house criminals in a notorious facility named Cecot. Hundreds of accused Venezuelan gang members were sent there last year. Reform claims housing people in El Salvador would cost half as much as it would to keep them in the UK.
Other countries have already reached deals to put offenders in foreign prisons, including Denmark, where 300 inmates are expected to be sent to Kosovo. And Sweden has a similar deal with Estonia, with prisoners expected to be housed there this month.
Political context
Reform's latest announcement comes as the party faces a slump in the polls, having been overtaken by Labour for the first time in more than a year earlier this month. Last week Mr Farage unveiled a 25-page plan to use the Royal Navy to stop small boats and return the people on board to France. But the French government swiftly torpedoed the proposal, saying it would be a violation of its sovereignty.
In a separate announcement, Mr Yusuf was mocked for announcing company bosses would face jail under Reform if they employed staff with no right to work in the UK. Similar legislation has already been passed by Labour.
