Labour Policing Minister Sarah Jones dismissed Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as a ‘plastic patriot’ and said she is ‘not interested’ in his griping – pointing to her party’s record in power
Nigel Farage has been dismissed as a “plastic patriot” with no answers to tackle knife crime by the Government’s policing minister.
Sarah Jones said she is “not interested” in Reform’s griping as she pointed to progress since Labour came to power. Asked if she was frustrated by Mr Farage’s continual claims that Britain is lawless – which he adopted as a slogan over the summer – Ms Jones said: “He’s a plastic patriot.
“He doesn’t come up with the answers and the solutions to tackle the problem. We have proved in the last year that if we make the right interventions we can reduce knife crime, and that’s what I’m interested in.
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“I’m not interested in voices at the side lobbying division. I’m here to reduce knife crime and that’s what we’re doing. We’ve got the first results and they’re good but there’s a long way to go.
“We’ll keep doing the policies that reduce knife crime.” Labour has pledged to halve this type of offence within a decade.
Figures released last week show a a 5% drop in knife-related crime in a year. There were 51,527 knife offences in the 12 months to June, compared to 54,215 the previous year.
There was an 18% drop in knife homicides in the same period. Ms Jones said: “We’re absolutely moving in the right direction. Of course, every murder, every stabbing, is one too many, but we are determined to crack down on knife crime.
“I think the results that we’ve seen in the last year, we’ve turned a corner – knife crime was rising, now it’s beginning to come down. I think the overall knife crime figures, with the 5% reduction, plus the much bigger reduction in terms of homicides, I think, is really encouraging.”
She said targeting resources to hotspot policing, getting more police on the streets and tougher laws on the sale of knives have contributed to the fall. “All of these things come together to save lives and protect our communities,” she stated.
But the policing minister, who has been in post since September, said: “I’m not under any illusions that we’ve got a very long way go. The numbers are too high, we want to halve the numbers in 10 years.
“It’s great that we’re moving in the right direction, we’re saving lives, but there’s a long way to go.”
She said departments across Whitehall are working together to stop young people getting drawn into violence after youth services were “decimated” under the Tories.
“Lots of different service providers had to shrink what they do and we’re joined up in the way they need to be. We’re trying to knit those organisations back together so we’re doing the things that make the most difference.
“Whether that’s youth workers in A&E, whether it’s the mental health support for young people… what we’re doing in schools, all these things need to work together in a much more positive way.”
In the summer Mr Farage said Reform would spend £17billion on policies to halve crime. These include ad-hoc ‘Nightingale’ prisons and deporting 10,000 foreign criminals. This would be achieved by scrapping HS2 and the UK’s net zero climate commitments, he claimed.