Key events
Good morning. Andy Burnham has said Middlemarch is his favourite novel, but he may not remember George Eliot’s line about the genial businessman Mr Vincy who “blustering as he was, had as little of his own way as if he had been a prime minister”. Burnham only took over in No ۱۰ three weeks ago today. But already he is learning that Eliot had a point about the constraints of office.
As PM, Burnham became responsible for the prisoner early release scheme due to come into force in September, which is hugely controversial because it will lead to killers, rapists and sex offenders being released early. Burnham immediately said he was “pausing” the scheme pending a rethink, and early last week he announced he was changing the rules to make the scheme more restrictive. Explaining the move in an article for the Daily Telegraph, Burnham said that he “wanted to go even further” but that the plan he was announcing “pushed to the very limits of what is possible to do.” He added: “I know I can look people in the eye and say to them there is nothing more I could have asked for without risking the prison system reaching capacity and collapsing within months.”
But if he thought that would quell public and media anger about the plan, he was wrong. The new rules won’t affect two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper, who will still get early release under the scheme, and Burnham is now reportedly considering a further crackdown to ensure they are included (which, if it goes ahead, would undermine the ‘nothing more he could do’ claim in the Telegraph last week). Even if Burnham manages to exempt the Harper killers, it won’t be long before media organisations start focusing on other emotive stories about criminals being released early. The Daily Express has an example this morning.
And this morning the Daily Mail has opened up another line of attack on the policy, highlighting Tory claims that the early release scheme will lead to “around ۵۰۰ added sex offences, nearly ۱,۸۰۰ violent crimes and just under ۳۶,۰۰۰ thefts before the end of this parliament in ۲۰۲۹”. The Ministry of Justice has dismissed the report as “highly speculative” and based on “an inaccurate method of calculating the impact of sentencing reforms”. It says: “Without [the early release scheme], we risk prisons reaching capacity and collapsing. If that happened, police could not make arrests, courts could not remand offenders and there would be unchecked criminality on our streets.”
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is now leaping in with his own alleged solution. Reform says it will free up space in jails in England and Wales by rapidly deporting all foreign offenders “to serve their sentences in countries like El Salvador and Kosovo”. In a post on social media, Farage is highlighting a Sun story saying “following initial conversations with the El Salvador government about renting prison spots, party chairman Lee Anderson will lead a team of officials for a visit later this year”. Farage is also proposing building “Nightingale prisons” to create extra spaces. He will be giving more details at a press conference later with Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson.
In their London Playbook briefing for Politico, Dan Bloom and Megan McElroy highlight some of the obvious problems with this.
Yusuf [says] Reform will deport “all ۱۰,۰۰۰ foreign nationals from our prisons.” Of the ۱۰,۱۳۴ foreign nationals in custody in England and Wales, nearly a third are on remand, i.e. they haven’t been convicted of a crime yet. A Reform official confirmed foreign nationals will only come in scope of the party’s scheme if and when they’re convicted. Then there are questions about what’d happen after inmates in Kosovo finish their sentence (Reform would put a lifetime ban on returning to the U.K.). Or matters like El Salvador’s human rights record — though Playbook can imagine how Farage will respond to that one.
Commenting on the Reform proposals, a Labour spokesperson said:
Keeping the public safe is and always will be Labour’s first priority. The government has already made clear we are working at pace to deport foreign criminals and we’re building more prison places to deliver justice for victims and keep criminals behind bars.
Reform have no serious answers to the Tory prisons crisis and would lead the system to collapse. This would result in a free for all for dangerous and violent offenders, including murderers and rapists. Nigel Farage and Reform simply can’t be trusted to keep Britain safe.
Burnham is back from holiday this week, and is due to start a summer tour of Britain soon. But we have not been told to expect him out today.
So there are only two items on the agenda.
۱۱am: Farage and Yusuf hold their press conference.
۱۱.۳۰am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
As I explained earlier this month, we are no longer going to have comments open below the line on this blog. From today, if you want to contact me, or anyone else writing the blog when I am not here, please email politics.live@theguardian.com. You can use this to flag up corrections, comments for publication, questions or complaints. There is a longer post here about how we hope this will work.
