Pandering to Farage' Cooper warned over release of criminals' nationalities

Migrant charities and MPs have accused Yvette Cooper of pandering to racism and stoking the possibility of riots after the Home Office said it would publish the nationalities of foreign criminals in the UK for the first time.

- Rajeev Syal

The home secretary has ordered officials to publish the data, including the crimes committed, by the end of the year. It is expected to lead to "league tables" of foreign nationals showing which nationalities are more associated with particular crimes.

The move was announced amid an attempt by Labour to quell the threat from Nigel Farage's Reform UK party at next week's local elections.

Fizza Qureshi, the chief executive of the Migrants' Rights Network, said publicising foreign national offenders' nationalities was a "blatant exercise in scapegoating".

She said: "The criminal justice system, policing and immigration systems are infamously racist and disproportionately impact racialised people. Attempts to manufacture a link between nationalities and criminality only serves to deepen prejudice and discrimination towards migrants from certain countries.