Resist Labour’s surrender to criminals with every sinew

In these pages last month, I warned of Labour’s radical hard-Left agenda. With a huge majority behind Sir Keir Starmer, we can now see it in action. The change Labour is bringing is clear: taxes up, prisons emptied and our borders opened.

The Conservative Party has much soul-searching to do. We must strike a careful balancing act of defending the things we got right in Government – like education reforms that massively expanded opportunity, a sustained period of close to full employment, and the restoration of our national sovereignty – while being frank about where we let voters down. This will take time.

But as we conduct this necessary post-mortem, we cannot give Labour a free pass. We owe it to the country to scrutinise everything the Government does and fight policy decisions that harm the national interest. And I can think of no greater threat to the national interest than Labour’s plan to release thousands of offenders early from prison in the coming weeks.

Let’s be clear what this would mean. Letting out thousands of prisoners just 40 per cent or less of the way through their sentence risks triggering a crime wave of rapes, assaults and robberies in the very near future. 

Most people in our prisons have offended many times before and will offend again. Nine per cent of criminals are responsible for 52 per cent of all convictions. That’s why, under the Tories, we brought in 5,700 extra prison places – a far better record than Labour. 

Of course, I acknowledge that difficulties exist in managing our criminal justice system, but I know from my time at the Home Office that there are real alternatives to Labour’s policy of mass-release. Labour says this is an emergency – so let’s treat it like one and act seriously.

Labour could deport foreign criminals and give them a lifetime ban from ever re-entering the UK, which would free up thousands of places. It could explore creating emergency capacity (as we did with hospitals during Covid) by delivering Rapid Deployment Cells.

The British people did not vote to let despicable criminals off scott-free. In fact, Labour’s own manifesto repeatedly criticised early release policies. This is an ideologically-driven choice being taken when Labour feels that opposition is lacking.

The newly appointed prisons minister, James Timpson, is a decent man who has done plenty of good work to help ex-prisoners rebuild their lives. There’s an important role for that. But he has also made clear he believes far fewer people should be in jail.

Labour is portraying its extreme policies as inevitable ones. But the party can’t spin its way out of this: it is a policy choice and will elevate ideology above public safety.

This duplicity is not limited to law and order. Rachel Reeves’s speech suggests that – within days of entering Downing Street – Labour will be back doing what it does best: raising taxes. Leaks reveal that the Government intends to introduce a punitive “farms tax” by applying a 40 per cent inheritance rate to family farms as they pass through the generations. It is also set to slap increased capital gains tax on people for having the temerity to work hard and earn a living.

We must be clear: these are not necessary economic measures as any revenue raised will be negligible. Rather, they’re barely disguised acts of class warfare designed to punish Conservative voters. These tax plans are more redolent of student union socialists than serious Government.

And on his first day in office, Starmer scrapped the Rwanda plan and surrendered to the people smugglers. Instead of pursuing a deterrent, Labour has rebranded the existing Small Boats Operational Command. Starmer said he would strengthen the border, but he is leaving us without one. The only credible solution is to bolster the Rwanda scheme, as myself and scores of Conservative colleagues proposed.

Unsurprisingly, Labour hid these policies from view during the campaign. Labour attacked early release policies, said it’d secure a strong border, and said it wouldn’t raise taxes. Labour knew there was no way it could win a mandate from the British public for this.

Starmer is now ignoring the interests and values of the majority. Far from being “unburdened by doctrine”, he is unburdened from what British people want and advancing dangerous ideas that have circulated in the Labour movement for the last few decades.

We should now take our time in agreeing on a new direction. But, in the meantime, we must unite and fight this radical agenda with everything we’ve got.

Rt Hon Robert Jenrick is Conservative MP for Newark