Make Britain Great Again, part 1

Five more policies for a better Britain

Last June, we published our article ‘Ten policies for a better Britain’. The hope was that Reform, or maybe even the Tories, might insert some of these policies into their manifestos.

This February, we are returning with ten more policies. Once again, we hope that either Reform or the Tories will adopt them. The first five are in this article; the next five will be published next month. The focus of these ten policies will mostly, but not exclusively, be on law and order.

We have selected policies that we believe are clearly workable, both in a practical and in a political sense; they are ‘oven-ready’, as a certain charlatan once put it. Have some suggestions of your own? Please leave a comment, or send us a DM on X.

1. Sell off London’s prisons to build safer, securer, and cheaper prisons elsewhere

Opposite Wandsworth Common, at the end of a row of mansions that regularly sell for north of £4 million, squats Britain’s worst prison. That HMP Wandsworth nears collapse is no secret, but it has recently been forced into public view: first in 2023, following the escape of Daniel Khalife after two-fifths of the prison guards failed to turn up to work; and again in 2024, when an inmate was filmed having sex with a prison guard. The only thing unusual about the latter incident was that it was recorded. As control of prisons has broken down, sexual relationships between officers and inmates have become almost routine. In many jails, drugs and phones are as accessible as on a high street, and corruption in the prison service is rampant — incarcerated drug dealers are able to continue running their operations from behind bars.

The worst cases are the inner London prisons. Pentonville, Brixton, Wormwood Scrubs, and Wandsworth are decaying relics. Plans to shut them were floated a decade ago by Michael Gove, before being scrapped by his successor as Justice Secretary, Liz Truss. Gove’s plans were, however, based on the belief that we should be reducing prisoner numbers. Precisely the opposite is true: far more criminals should be locked up. Virtually every problem in the criminal justice system — in the courts, probation, the police, and the streets — can at least partially be attributed to the lack of prison capacity. It is a symptom of the impotence of the British state that it has been unable to build new prisons, in large part due to difficulties in securing planning permission.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Bigger, modern prisons on the outskirts of towns can be safer, securer, and much cheaper, as a recent inspection of HMP Oakwood demonstrated. Labour pledged that on ‘day one’ of their government they would designate new prisons as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). They have not. There is no way to restore law and order in Britain without a major expansion of the prison estate, whether it is accomplished by NSIP designation, or via special development orders, or as part of a wider reform of the planning system.

Needless to say, an expansion of the private estate will not come cheap. But it can at least partly be bankrolled by the demolition of city-centre prisons, which occupy some of the world’s most valuable real estate (a two-bedroom flat next to HMP Pentonville will cost you over a million pounds, and that’s before considering the likely increase in land value if the prison wasn’t there). The revenue from the sale must be hypothecated towards the construction of new prisons, and the redevelopments must be profit-focused, in no small part to squash any pleas for social housing on the new estates.

A decade ago, the potential value of the new housing the redevelopment would provide was estimated at £1.5 billion, and that’s with thirty percent being allocated as social housing. Admittedly, the costs of new prison construction are obscene; this may in part be addressed by building bigger and achieving economies of scale. Moreover, newer prisons can also be cheaper to run: HMP Oakwood, the aforementioned Category C prison, opened in 2012, costs £17,006 per prisoner (the cheapest of its category in the country by some distance), compared with £29,919 at HMP Brixton, which is also Category C, opened in 1820. It is possible, then, to make this country safer while also saving money. Pentonville, Brixton, Wormwood Scrubs, and Wandsworth should all be sold off; Belmarsh, Feltham, Isis, and Thameside ought to be retained for prisoners awaiting trial in London’s courts.

Where should the new prisons be located? Prisons located outside of major settlements are, ceteris paribus, likely to be safer and cheaper. But beyond this, it would also be sensible if they were built in parts of country where land is cheap, the economy is depressed, and unemployment is higher, as this will provide a small but discernible boost to the local economy by providing stable, relatively well-paid employment. It is also likely that the quality of prison guards in these areas would be higher, though this is somewhat more speculative.

2. Probation insurance: privatising offender release with skin in the game

In 2020/21, people under the supervision of the probation service in England and Wales are known to have murdered 55 people; attempted to murder 19 more people; killed 27 people declared manslaughter; raped 49 women; abducted 15 people; killed 8 people while taking a vehicle; and committed 50 more serious sexual offences. These are only the ‘serious offences’, and they are likely to have committed more of these crimes than we know about, but even then these numbers are particularly impressive given that for many months during that time, the authorities required most of the public to be confined in their own homes. On the very latest data, 26.5% of criminals are known to have reoffended after leaving prison.

The probation system doesn’t work. This is principally because it is a bureaucratic mechanism driven by ideological considerations of ‘rehabilitation’ and ‘rights’, rather than hard-headed risk analysis (let alone justice for the victims). Decisions over who to release and when are governed by a panel of worthies, the Parole Board. They hit the headlines in 2019 when they recommended the release of John Worboys, the prolific black cab rapist, a decision which was taken by victims to the High Court, which (for once) decided to keep somebody in prison. The Board’s chairman, Nick Hardwick, resigned — but it’s telling that a man with his very much not ‘law-and-order’ CV — featuring many years at the Refugee Council, then at the Independent Police Complaints Commission — ended up with the job of making such decisions in the first place.

Take as read that sentences should be longer and probation should not be an option until most of the sentence is complete. Ultimately, offenders will come to the end of their sentences and will need to reintegrate with society, and we will have a probation problem even if our current system is a failed solution. Parole Board members evaluate risks to the public without any skin in the game; no downside for releasing offenders who go on to rob or assault, let alone murder or rape. Hardwick’s resignation was an exception, but almost every day, criminals are released just to reoffend, with the Board palming responsibility for their failures off onto the Probation Service. The Service is thoroughly ‘modern’ in that way the public services now specialise: all process and no outcome, measured with countless KPIs, including monitoring of ‘protected characteristics’ and ‘persons with positive experience’, while reoffending statistics are (conveniently) published in a separate report.

If the current system doesn’t work, what do we do instead? You can fantasise about appointing stern hangers-and-floggers to man the Parole Board, but can you find them? Can you really ensure that they are not corrupted by the same incentives? Won’t the bureaucrats just take them for a ride? No: if you want to solve the problem properly, you need privatisation.

Privatising the probation problem would look very different from Chris Grayling’s failed outsourcing experiment because it would recognise that risk management is an insurance problem. Instead of a faceless Parole Board making unaccountable decisions and handing off to a salaried Probation Service focused on process, probation would require a named commercial insurer to put skin in the game. The model would work like this:

1. At some point towards the end of a custodial sentence, the minimum term would be served (including any time added for poor behaviour) and the offender would be informed that they can seek probation insurance. The offender would be free to contact a regulated panel of insurers to ask for quotes, with all information on his criminal record and his stay in prison shared with the insurers he approaches.

2. The insurers would then be open, if they feel able to manage the risk, to offer an indemnity for that offender’s release for the remainder of their sentence (with a minimum time period regardless of the outstanding sentence). This would include a cost that the offender would have to pay on a monthly basis for their insurance cover, a certain proportion of which could be covered by the state in lieu of prison. In addition, the insurers would be able to set constraints on offenders that are required to manage their risk. This could include accepting restrictive accommodation, curfews, drug testing, employment, and more. If accepted, the insurer could register their agreement and the offender can be released.

3. What happens then is between the insurer and the offender, but the point is that any offences committed during the insured probation period will result in financial penalties and costs recovered from the insurer. They have a direct interest in only insuring good risks and in taking steps to manage risks to allow mitigation. If the offender commits further offences, then the insurer will pay the cost of them returning to custody.

4. At any time, if the offender is not behaving within the insurer’s agreed restrictions, an insurer can choose for a return to custody. However, they will have to pay the cost of returning to prison, and lose whatever they would've been paid. This creates an incentive to only accept risks they think they can manage ex ante, and to live up to their end of the bargain with the offender ex post unless the offender seems likely to commit significant offences.

In this world, there are no Parole Board meetings; no politics involved in the decision. Insurers would pursue financial logic as to whether the offender can reasonably be expected to behave over the period of their arrangement. Offenders who have behaved poorly in prison and show all the signs of being unable to behave outside of prison are unlikely to be offered coverage, or at least not without a very high premium to be paid and tough conditions. Insurers will have every incentive to manage risky offenders proactively, because if they fail to do so, they will face substantial financial penalties. They will invest in risk assessment models which can predict which offenders are worth their backing, and which aren’t. While the state cannot be relied upon to impose penalties on people, the insurance model only requires it to regulate insurers to pay their financial penalties, making its job much more politically sustainable and indeed fairly pleasant.

This isn’t a low-cost model: it assumes a smaller, more exceptional role for probation with prison the default. This is the right choice, because crime is costly and prison is good value. But against that, there will be substantial cost savings as the Parole Board disappears and the Probation Service (20,412 salaried public servants in England and Wales) is shuttered, draining the criminal justice swamp considerably. The only state function necessary would be a small office to maintain a central contracts residency and bill insurers where their ‘clients’ offend, and to regulate the insurers. (Insurers would have to be regulated to ensure sufficient liquidity, and to prevent organised crime groups creating their own ‘insurers’ to ensure the release of their own members.)

Once the infrastructure is in place, it can be used in other ways. For example, it could replace the option of a suspended sentence with a new suspendable category, where those convicted of less serious offences can avoid prison only if they can win an insurer’s confidence. Just as with the probation scenario, we allow insurers to trade-off the benefits of allowing offenders to be free against the risk of them re-offending. Rather than having judges and magistrates make such decisions on the basis of limited information and with no consequence for their mistakes, insurers would only suspend sentences where they think they will avoid penalties from reoffending.

Probation is not, and never can be, a replacement for prison. The first and most important step towards any serious reform of criminal justice in this country is to recognise that. But probation is a valuable part of how we manage criminals and their sentences, even if at present it is badly done. Privatising through an insurance model means criminals will only gain early release when they are a risk that insurers are willing to bet on.

3. Impose Colombia-style sanctions on foreign countries who refuse to cooperate on immigration matters

Donald Trump has begun to apply pressure on countries that refuse to cooperate on immigration matters. Most notably, he imposed tariffs and visa restrictions upon Colombia after they refused to accept a deportation flight from the United States, and threatened to increase the tariffs further if his demands were not met. Despite much bluster from Colombia’s ‘left-wing populist’ president on X, he soon folded — a big win for Trumpism.

In Britain’s case, tariffs are only of limited value. Instead, some other obvious sanctions include blocking remittances, cancelling aid money, and refusing to issue any further visas (including travel visas) — first imposed upon members of the ruling class in recalcitrant countries, and then eventually upon all nationals. In extreme cases, asset freezes could also be an option. ‘Non-cooperation’ on immigration matters could eventually be extended to include those who facilitate or turn a blind eye to the illegal movement of their nationals here, rather than merely refusing their return. While most of the problems in illegal migration come from our end — from our courts, bureaucrats, and politicians — this should mean that things are entirely back in our hands, meaning that they have no more excuses for their failures.

Of course, Britain is not the United States. While we are no international minnow, and imposing measures on our own may not be wholly ineffective, it is sad but true that we may sometimes ultimately lack the means to genuinely coerce foreign countries in the way that the United States can. However, we can try to create an international bloc with more heft on these matters, and we should take a leading role in this bloc.

Which countries should we seek to cooperate with? This is a question that will be best answered by actually trying to do what we are proposing. But, to speculate somewhat, while Rupert Lowe (perhaps inevitably for a Reform MP, given the continued salience of Brexit for them) seems to believe that we should look to ‘CANZUK’, in our view, Britain’s best bet is probably to cooperate with Europe. Both Sunak and Starmer have already had discussions with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who has been attempting to build up pan-European cooperation on immigration matters for some years now, including through building close links to anti-immigration parties in other European Union member states.

Aside from Italy, other countries that seem likely to accept an invitation for cooperation along these lines on immigration include: Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Greece. The inclusion of countries like Romania and Bulgaria, despite the relatively low political salience of immigration there, is also possible, as is the inclusion of other European countries that are not EU member states (e.g., Norway, Switzerland). It is likely that due to the pressure that the creation of such an anti-immigration bloc would create, France (even in the absence of National Rally in Government) may be forced into joining for domestic political reasons. Germany could also plausibly be persuaded to join after the elections in February, for much the same reasons.

Outside of Europe, cooperation may be trickier, but not impossible. In Canada, the Right will most likely be returned to Government soon; in New Zealand, there is a right-wing coalition in charge. The real problem is that these countries, being so far away from us, simply have different immigration concerns to Europe, and thus are less naturally aligned on these matters. That said, it is plausible that these countries may have a big visa overstayer problem soon, which they will be seeking cooperation in resolving.

While it is true that domestic politics may change, and it will be tricky to bind members to their commitments, many left-wing parties may find it politically difficult to pull out of the bloc once they are already in it, given the political importance of immigration in almost all wealthy countries.

Once again, the precise governance of this new bloc is something that is best determined by actually opening up negotiations with other sovereign states. But it is important that provisions should be made to ensure that bloc membership is compatible with EU membership (e.g., by noting that sanctions cannot be imposed against EU member states). One of Trump’s main measures, the imposition of tariffs, is probably not possible if we include European Union member states in our diplomacy, as this would violate the Common External Tariff policy. However, most other measures would be viable, as immigration policy (aside from insofar as it affects other European Union member states) is still mostly a matter of domestic politics.

4. Make British citizenship mean something by abolishing Commonwealth voting rights

A previous article made the case, at some length, for stripping Commonwealth citizens of voting rights. But for those who have not read this article, what you need to know is the following. Under the current rules, so-called ‘Commonwealth citizens’ can vote in all of our elections. This has created a number of bizarre anomalies — such as the fact that a citizen of Bangladesh can vote in our elections almost immediately upon arrival, while a citizen of France cannot vote in our elections no matter how long they have been here.

Understandably, many people think this is inconsistent and unfair. Worse still, this situation has been used to undermine the concept of citizenship in this country by radical pro-migration activists. As we wrote in December:

…what even remains of ‘British citizenship’ once you can even participate in our national elections without it? You can already live and work here indefinitely without it. You can already claim state benefits without it. Consular assistance abroad? Working for the diplomatic service? There really isn’t much left, at least as it pertains to life in Britain itself. And from here, we can see some other consequences. Since there is no difference in practice between non-citizens and citizens, on what logical basis could we remove non-citizen criminals or deny non-citizens access to welfare? Or, more radically, on what basis could we even have a border at all?

The abolition of Commonwealth voting rights would restore conceptual logic and value to British citizenship. As such, while mostly (though not entirely) a symbolic measure, it is still very much worth pursuing.

These anomalies appeared as a consequence of two factors. The first is decolonisation, and the creation of ‘British nationality’ (and the adjacent concept of ‘British subject’) in the aftermath of the Second World War. The second is the notion, commonly held in the early post-war period, that Britain would orientate itself economically and geopolitically towards the Commonwealth, rather than towards Europe. Neither of these are relevant considerations in 2025: the concept of a ‘British subject’ has virtually ceased to exist in British law, and our citizenship laws are now mostly in line with those of other countries; and Britain joined the European Economic Community all the way back in 1973, and even after Brexit we have not made any serious moves to reactivate our economic relations with the Commonwealth as a whole (as distinct from certain of the former Dominions).

The previous article argued that it would be preferable if all Commonwealth citizens lost their voting rights. This, however, would be a very controversial measure. A far less controversial measure would be a change to the rules which is only applied to those who arrived after a certain future date, as specified in statute. This would mean that the change would take the form of ending the creation of new rights, rather than the removal of existing rights. This should be acceptable to most people, so long as the case for the change is clearly made (given that very few people in this country are even aware that Commonwealth citizens can vote in the first place).

More generally, Britain should reconsider ‘the Commonwealth’ as a concept. It is not clear how it serves British interests in the twenty-first century. While we are often told it bolsters our ‘soft power’, it mostly seems to have become a venue for our former colonies to demand money and apologies from us.

5. Overturn DPP v. Ziegler via an Act of Parliament

DPP v. Ziegler is a 2021 UK Supreme Court case that has led to the discontinuation of a number of criminal prosecutions of disruptive protesters, and the decision not to pursue (or even arrest) countless others. The judgment in itself is bad enough, but even worse have been its knock-on effects, as over-cautious police have allowed far-left protesters to wreak havoc on our streets. It’s time to change the rules of the game.

The facts of the case are as follows. In 2017, the Defence and Security International Arms Fair was held in London. A number of protesters sought to disrupt the fair by lying in the middle of the road (sound familiar?) and attaching themselves to lock boxes. The police asked the protesters to voluntarily remove themselves from the road; however, they refused. After much discussion, the police eventually chose to take the radical course of arresting people who were breaking the law; namely, Section 137 of the Highways Act 1980. This took over ninety minutes, as the lock boxes were purposefully designed to be difficult to disassemble.

This case, to any normal person, seems fairly cut and dry. However, District Judge Hamilton disagreed. In a judgment riddled with spelling and grammar errors, he ruled that the actions of the police were not ‘proportionate’ and thus violated Article 10 (freedom of expression) and Article 11 (right to peaceful assembly) of the European Convention on Human Rights, as enshrined in UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998. A Divisional Court overturned the District Court on appeal, but the defendants appealed this decision.

The case went to the Supreme Court, where a panel of left-wing activist judges reaffirmed the views of Justice Hamilton. The Supreme Court ruled that because the protesters’ actions ‘gave rise to no form of disorder [sic], did not involve the commission of any offence other than the alleged Section 137 offence, was carefully targeted at vehicles heading to the fair, involved no complete obstruction of the highway, and, insofar as the obstruction lasted 90-100 minutes, was of limited duration’, the District Court was right to rule in favour of the defendants.

While correlation does not equal causation, this judgment seems to have encouraged many more protests that involve the blocking of roads. Most of these protests, most notably those of Just Stop Oil, were far less targeted in their nature than the protest in question in DPP v. Ziegler. Even under the dubious criteria set out in DPP v. Ziegler, it would seem that the police would be well within their rights to arrest Just Stop Oil protesters. However, due to the serious doubt created by DPP v. Ziegler, they are now usually very hesitant to do so. This has been a disastrous addition to our case law.

Ideally, not only should DPP v. Ziegler be overturned; we should also repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and bring the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg court over British matters to an end. However, even with the Human Rights Act 1998 still in place, it should still be possible to overturn DPP v. Ziegler via a clearly-worded statute. In fact, recent cases have suggested that DPP v. Ziegler was wrongly decided (see, for example, Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland — Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Northern Ireland) Bill [2022] UKSC 32), which should make this easy. But even if this is not the case, it should be remembered that the Human Rights Act 1998 tells us that statute should be read as ‘compatible with the Convention rights’, but only ‘so far as it is possible to do so’.

This should free the police to deal with disruptive protesters in the way they did before. If they still fail, they will have no more excuses.

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Image credits: Eduardo, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

This article was written by a committee of Pimlico Journal contributors, chaired by editor-in-chief Nigel Forrester. Have a pitch? Send it to pimlicojournal@substack.com.

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