FARAGE: THREE STRIKES AND IT'S LIFE IN BER JAIL

Reform leader vows his Government would give repeat serious offenders tough sentence

- By Jonathan Walker

Whitehall Editor NIGEL Farage plans a "three strikes and you're out" policy for repeat serious offenders as part of a radical plan to cut crime by half.

The Reform UK leader warned yesterday: "Under Reform, if you commit more than three serious offences, you could face life imprisonment. More crime will simply mean more time.

Mr Farage wants his party to be "the toughest on law and order and on crime that this country has ever seen".

He has pledged to recruit 30,000 extra police officers if he becomes Prime Minister.

This will include "physically tougher" applicants, including former soldiers, being given priority in order to intimidate wrongdoers.

Also under Reform's 10-point plan, thousands of foreign offenders would be deported back home, while British criminals will serve sentences overseas in countries such as El Salvador and Kosovo.

Mr Farage vowed to end the scandal of police failing to arrest shoplifters or mobile phone thieves and pledged a "zero tolerance" approach to crime.

The crackdown would see mothballed courts reopened, suspects held in "popup" custody suites and five "Nightingale" prisons built on disused military land, modelled on the hospitals created at short notice during the pandemic.

Control

He said: "We will aim to cut crime by half in the first five years of a Reform government.