Farage's plan for 'slashing crime' follows the now predictable pattern of Reform showcasing eye catchingly red meat policies, which when fleshed out, leave much to be desired. To be sure, all the initiatives presented invite the natural sympathies of right leaning voters. They thematically fall into what J'accuse writers used to dub the 'Andreessen' consensus; robust populist visions of squaddies knocking prisoners about, indentured roadmen picking fruit in East Anglia and deporting Channel hoppers to Ascension island. Farage has so far proposed to establish five 'Nightingale' prisons (makeshift prisons modelled on the expedient tent hospitals established during lockdown) as well to engage in the construction of 12,400 new prison places on MoD land, to be built with the assistance of the army. 30,000 new police officers will be recruited using tough physical requirements, with preference given to ex-servicemen. 100 pop-up custody centres will be established in crime spots to speed up arrests. Predictably, the grotesque 'Operation early dawn', which has seen rapists and murderers released on probation after serving literally only months in prison, will be ended. More noteworthy, Lee Anderson has suggested that a three strike rule should be introduced to end the scourge of recidivist criminality.
All so far so good. I have outlined my own proposals for criminal justice reform in this journal before and would of course go much further than Farage. Britain's urban areas don't need pop custody centres, they need a Bukele style mass internment of ethnic gangs. Only several days ago a nine-year old girl was shot in the head a turf war between the Tottenham and Hackney Turk gangs. Parliament could simply declare suspected membership of an ethnically defined gang to be a form of extremism and suspend habeas corpus for metropolitan centres. We don't need Nightingale prisons, but a 'Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism' straddling the M25.
A real reformist government also wouldn't just recruit more brawn for an ideologically compromised police service. Instead the right should aspire to create parallel Native British civil defence associations, like a white Shomrim. If one pays any attention to organic paedophile hunting groups and asylum monitoring citizen journalists (significant overlap between these two camps), it wouldn't be difficult to find recruits for such localised bodies. Eventually, these organisations could function as a popular mobilisation force akin to the militias of old, superseding the police in many of its functions. This is not completely 'out there'; fairly mainstream centre-right journalists like Peter Hitchens, when he abstains from bemoaning the supposed inevitable trajectory of national decline, has advocated for training a new police force. Bear in mind the Peelite institution we have today has only existed throughout the country since the 1850s. It isn't an indelible feature of the British national landscape. At the elite level we should also countenance a British 'national guard', a corps strength counter-terrorism force which would be responsible for policing London and other urban hot spots of criminality. It would additionally act as a praetorian defence force against the possibility of colour revolutions.
But all this being said, if Farage does carry through on his promises (if he is our next prime minister) crime will decrease. Britain as we all know is becoming an increasingly lawless place. Ski-masked Boriswavers, phone snatchers, predatory asylum seekers and their intersection in the ubiquitous phenomenon of Deliveroo drivers, have all contributed to the general destruction of Britain's towns and cities. Our government has settled the country with itinerant violent migrants with low impulse control. Crime, contra the declinist 'we've never had it better' apologia of Fraser Nelson, is actually increasing year on year, with reports of sexual assault more than doubling in the course of the last decade. This statistical trend actually aligns with people's general perceptions of criminality. Britain would be highly receptive to a Giuliani style crackdown. Seeing some heads receiving cracks would be much appreciated. Every sensible person who has been on the receiving end of the asymmetric violence of Britain's anarcho-tyranny feels the same way.
Where the agenda becomes particularly interesting, and where it is fraught with potential problems, is in its advocacy of deporting dangerous criminals to El Salvador, alongside other eclectic locations. It is encouraging to see Reform belatedly embracing the politics of multilateral resettlement. Contra some online critics, this is probably the most radically sound policy we've seen from the party. While imitative of the Trump administration, it is different from the copycatting of the Doge in Reform run councils, because the latter agenda is predicated on a misunderstanding of structural conditions in Britain (there aren't actually £100,000,000s to be saved through a war on woke in rural Welsh counties). Conversely, there is no good reason not to deport violent criminals to leased prison wards in willing third party countries. Its a highly cost effective measure which alleviates a financial burden on the British taxpayer whilst simultaneously funding developing governments' domestic wars on crime. It is an eminently rational division of global labour. It also adds an additionally punitive aspect to sentencing which current internment in prison lacks. The objections to it are predicated on subjective value judgements based on concerns about the purported violation of the fictive ''human rights'' of criminals. In more debased forms, the criticisms devolve into jingoistic proclamations that 'this is not what a civilised country does'. Presumably Britain, as both a nascent and hegemonic imperial power, was not a civilised country when it deported undesirables to more uncertain fates in the West Indies and Australia.