Farage: Britain Is Facing Complete 'Societal Collapse'

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has warned that unless change is instituted rapidly, Britain will soon succumb to complete societal collapse.

“We live increasingly in a lawless Britain… most people think that Britain has become lawless”, Farage remarked Monday at a press conference to launch a new law and order policy platform.

“We’re actually facing, in many parts of our country, nothing short of societal collapse,” Farage warned, adding “People are scared to go out to the shops, scared to let their kids out. That is a society that is degraded, and it’s happening very, very rapidly.”

Farage further suggested that Britain should leave the European Court of Human Rights in order to restore effective criminal deterrence.

Farage maintains that the ECHR undermines the country’s ability to deport foreign criminals, terrorists, and illegal migrants, thereby weakening criminal deterrence.

He contends that exiting the system would remove legal barriers imposed by foreign judges, and allow the UK to swiftly remove dangerous individuals, free up prison space, reduce taxpayer burdens, and send a strong message that crime by non-citizens will result in certain expulsion.

This, in his view, would restore effective deterrence by ensuring consequences are enforced without interference, discouraging both criminal activity and illegal immigration.

Among a range of policies he outlined to avoid a descent into societal collapse, Farage suggested outsourcing hardened criminals to foreign jails and a hard-line three-strikes and you’re out rule, meaning after three convictions there would be no more rehabilitation for offenders.

He noted that one of the most egregious aspects of the collapse is that the government is obsessed with drilling it into the British people that everything is getting better when citizens can see the rampant degradation all around them.

“Huge numbers of law-abiding, taxpaying Britons have also lost respect for the police but in a different way. The idea, the concept that we’re living in a system of two-tier policing and two-tier justice under two-tier Keir has really taken hold,” Farage urged.

Farage noted that crimes such as shoplifting and drug taking have been allowed to become a part of everyday life in cities, and that one in three Londoners have now been victims of mobile phone theft.

He vowed that his party will work to halve crime in five years if elected to parliament by becoming “the toughest party on law and order and on crime that this country has ever seen”, and instituting “zero tolerance policing.”

Farage also floated the idea of Army run centres for repeat petty criminals to be held in and made to undergo a program of reform.

He pointed to Rudy Giuliani’s tenure as Mayor of New York City as an example of how to restore law and order in a broken down society.

“We are borrowing from the Giuliani playbook, unashamedly, I think what Rudy Giuliani did to New York in the 1990s was nothing short of a blooming miracle,” Farage stated.

He added, “And as someone who spent over 20 years working for American companies, I was a regular transatlantic commuter, and I saw what one inspired, brave leader with a New York Police Department that wanted to work with him… I saw what could happen, what the potential was. I believe London needs a Giuliani, not a Sadiq Khan.”

Farage’s full comments are below:

Farage’s comments come after accusations from major retailers that police have effectively stopped treating shoplifting as crime.