Nigel Farage is absolutely right about growing lawlessness - Britons are sick of it

From sending prisoners to El Salvador to recruiting tougher police officers, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is right to suggest criminals should be more fearful of falling foul of the law in this country. Too many low level offenders currently escape without any punishment at all - with the result that shoplifting and other anti-social crimes that make life difficult for the law-abiding majority are rampant across the UK.

As Farage rightly put it in a well-received speech earlier this week, a little bit of "fear" is needed in order to maintain respect for law and order. And I'd add that we need more punishment, not less - not only to deter criminals but to satisfy a sense of fairness among the wider population.

It's simply not fair hard-pressed families should watch as shoplifters carry out bags of goods when they have to work hard to afford their food bills. And it adds insult to injury when these prolific offenders are, occasionally, brought to justice and then let off with community sentences.

Neither is it fair that illegal migrants should jump the queue into our country and end up being funded by taxpayers, while some of them brazenly commit crimes, from working illegally to more serious incidents. And it's not fair career criminals can be let out after serving just 40% of their sentences, while first time offenders like Lucy Connolly have to serve their full sentence - having been jailed for a social media post, albeit one that was highly unsavoury.

Farage is rightly addressing this sense of two-tier justice which sabotages any chance of a fair, functioning society. The social contract traditionally meant that if you were law-abiding and worked hard, you got on in life while those who stole, hurt and murdered face the full force of the law - not a watered-down version that suits the ideology of left-wingers who want to keep prison places for people whose views they don't like.

Our criminal justice system has been historically underfunded and prisons might be jam-packed. But this doesn't mean we shouldn't jail any more people. The answer quite simply is more funding, more prisons and more police. Not less.

Prisons Minister James Timpson is, undoubtedly, a decent man but his ambitions to tag more criminals and send less to jail are wrong-headed. It is a case of the tail wagging the dog. We should jail as many people as we need to jail - no more, no less. Lord Timpson has said only a third of current inmates should actually be in prison. I suspect most ordinary Britons would strongly disagree with that sentiment.

This week Farage suggested many solutions. Prisons to house lower-level offenders would be a good start - quickly and cheaply built in the style of Nightingale hospitals erected during Covid. Paying foreign nations to house some of our most notorious criminals - the Reform leader name-checked El Salvador - would be a suitable punishment for monsters like child-killer Ian Huntley and act as a deterrent.

Returning the 10,000 foreign criminals we currently house would release many more prison places and save money to be pumped back into the system. While leaving the ECHR in order to side-step human rights lawyers using legal loopholes to keep dangerous offenders on our soil seems entirely justified. Let's be clear, the human rights of British, law-abiding citizens should always come before foreign criminals.

The sheer common sense of it all is what makes the Reform leader's speech so welcome. Of course, some of it is headline grabbing, but that's the point of it. Shilly-shallying, delaying and dithering so as not to hurt the feelings of criminals is perhaps the most repulsive aspect of the current political elite running our lives and Farage is calling an end to it.

There is a reason that political populism is cutting through in so many Western nations, because it's addressing directly the legitimate concerns of the majority of people.

Farage was also correct to highlight the case of PC Lorne Castle being sacked for making a teenage thug "frightened and intimidated". He should have been commended for tackling a dangerous criminal. Why are brave, physically tough policemen being made to feel they are the wrong ones? In a dangerous world, I would rather have more PC Castles in our police force than a whole host of overpaid Diversity, Equity and Inclusion managers.

That Farage and Reform are saying exactly what we want to hear about law and order is a sign that at least someone is listening to our increasing sense of unfairness. Let's hope others are listening too.