Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has reportedly begun negotiations with the Nayib Bukele government to send migrant criminals from Britain’s overcrowded jails to El Salvador.
In preparation for entering government, Reform is continuing its diplomatic groundwork to reverse the migrant crisis that has bedevilled successive administrations in London.
According to The Sun, Britain’s highest-circulation paper, a delegation led by Reform Party Chairman Lee Anderson will be dispatched to San Salvador later this year to hold talks on a potential scheme similar to the one agreed to between the Trump administration and the Bukele government, which has demonstrated remarkable success in reducing crime through the mass jailing of gangs like MS-13.
This reportedly comes in the wake of an opening salvo of inquiries over the prospect of a future Reform government in Britain renting prison spaces in the Central American country to house foreign criminals currently taking up space in the UK’s thinly stretched penal system.
As of the end of last month, there were 10,134 foreign nationals incarcerated in jails in England and Wales, out of a total prison population of 85,858, meaning that 12 per cent of all prison beds were occupied by migrants, at taxpayer expense.
In large part as a result of the significant number of migrants in the prison system, multiple governments have decided to enact early release schemes for criminals to free up space for the newly incarcerated.
This policy appears set to be repeated by the recently installed government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham, with the supposed proviso that sex offenders will not be released early. However, reports have claimed that the killers of Police Constable Andrew Harper are set to be freed under the Burnham scheme.
In addition to sending foreign criminals abroad, Nigel Farage is also expected to announce plans for “Nightingale” emergency pop-up prisons to create a further 12,000 prison places.
Reform UK Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf said: “We will deport all 10,000 foreign nationals from our prisons, sending them to serve their sentences in countries like El Salvador.
“We will use the space created to ensure that serious criminals stay where they belong: behind bars.”
Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick added: “Reform will send foreign criminals to rot in jail in the likes of El Salvador, so killers like those of PC Andrew Harper are never released early.”
The overtures to San Salvador are not the only ones that Reform has been making in preparation for taking power in London.
Indeed, in December, Mr Farage met with National Rally president Jordan Bardella, who is currently the favourite to become the next prime minister of France. Although Farage has long been at odds with National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, an apparent rapprochement was made through her deputy, who expressed a desire for a “patriotic alliance” between Reform and the RN to end the migrant crisis.
As part of this plan, Mr Farage said he would deploy the Royal Navy in the English Channel to prevent people-smuggling boats from reaching British shores. For his part, Bardella — who is set to attend an upcoming Reform conference — said that France would no longer object to boat migrant pushbacks, as it would reduce the pull factors driving illegal immigration into his country in the first place.