Violent UK offenders could be sent to El Salvador under Farage crime crackdown

Nigel Farage has said violent UK offenders could be jailed overseas under his plans to cut crime by half.

The Reform UK leader named El Salvador as a likely destination, though he said he has not held conversations with officials there and "multiple" partners would be considered.

El Salvador is home to a notorious mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

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In a speech on law and order on Monday, Mr Farage said: "It is quite astonishing that to keep a prisoner in a British prison it costs nearly £52,000 a year.

"You could send a child Eton for that price.

"So we can send some of our worst violent criminals overseas to serve their terms. If that means Ian Huntley goes to El Salvador. Well, our attitude is 'so be it'."

Huntley is serving a life term for the murders of two 10-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002.

Asked if he had spoken to any members of the El Salvadoran government about his plans, Mr Farage said he had not but "we do know they're quite happy to take American violent offenders".

In March, the Trump administration deported more than 130 alleged Venezuelan gang members to the CECOT while the US president has also spoken of sending "homegrown criminals" to the super max facility.

Reform UK said it wanted to create 10,000 "dynamic" prison places overall by renting cells in third party countries, at a cost of £250m per year. This would involve "multiple partners including El Salvador", according to a document outlining the plan in further detail.

This will come alongside a number of policies aimed at cutting crime by half if Mr Farage's party wins the next election.

The Clacton MP wants to hire another 30,000 police officers, put stop and search in every area where knife crime is prevalent and implement a zero-tolerance policy to shoplifting so every offence "however small" is prosecuted.

Mr Farage also said he would free up to 10,000 more prison places by deporting foreign criminals to their country of origin, saying he has already spoken to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama about this.

He said he would take back British offenders who are incarcerated overseas in return but if countries are still reluctant "we'll make it very straightforward. We'll just end travel".

Mr Farage did not say how much the plans would cost or how they would be funded in his speech, which marks the start of a six week "lawless Britain" campaign.

However, in response to questions from media he said the plans would cost £17.4bn over a five-year parliament.

He said the cost of crime is far greater than that so "it isn't really a question of can we afford to do this, it's really a question of we can't afford not to do this".

He insisted he would not have to raise taxes, saying the money would come from "huge cuts" to public spending including axing HS2 and net zero policies and reducing the size of the state.

Mr Farage claimed his plans are necessary because parts of Britain are facing "nothing short of societal collapse" due to spiralling crime rates.

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Sir Keir Starmer has made halving serious violent crime one of the missions of his government, but the pledge has been somewhat overshadowed by his controversial early prison release scheme, aimed at freeing up prison capacity due to overcrowding.

A spokesperson for the prime minister said he is already deporting foreign national offenders, adding that Mr Farage's plans are "unfunded and lack detail" and that "we are getting on with it".

The spokesperson ruled out moving prisoners overseas, saying the government is "focused on investing and fixing prisons here".

He added: "In the last 14 years we saw only 500 places added to prison estate and since then we have been going further to free up space in our prisons."