The October 2025 edition of Professional Security Magazine asked what a Reform UK government would look like in terms of criminal justice – of interest to private security readers and indeed to voters. Mark Rowe returns to the subject.
UK politics looks still like Reform UK having a bumper majority and replacing flailing Labour at the next general election, which must be held by 2029; though much could happen before then, such as (aired in the February 2026 edition of the magazine) a major war with Russia. In October, I raked over what Reform might do in power, anything different from the previous, first Coalition then Conservative governments since 2010, and Labour since July 2024; given that on its website and in leader Nigel Farage’s speech he makes much of Reform being an alternative.
The other thing of still more direct, commercial interest to private security last year was Reform’s announcement of ‘Operation Restoring Justice’, their ‘plan to deport all illegal migrants in the UK, and secure our borders’. Proposed were ‘secure immigration removal centres (SIRCs for short) with a capacity of 24,000 (to be deported a month). To detain that amount of people, and the throughput! That the SIRCs would be in ‘remote parts of the country’ would suggest plenty of secure transport required; all presumably done solely or aided by contract security. More transport would be needed to take those detained to airfields where Home Office chartered aircraft will deport them. Let’s leave aside how politically or practically possible this is; to single out only Sussex, Crowborough is up in arms that asylum seekers in the hundreds are proposed for an Army camp outside the town, as the county’s (Conservative) police and crime commissioner (PCC) has responded to by proposing electronic tagging.
Illegal migration, then, has a rare ability to galvanise voters’ opinion. What though about what we might call the everyday crime and disorder issues, all of interest to private security managers: fraud (the biggest crime by volume); drug related theft from retail; street crime and anti-social behaviour, safety fears after dark? These are also meat for Reform politicians, such as the party’s newly announced candidate for London mayor, City of Westminster councillor Laila Cunningham. She made much of crime this month at her unveiling. She, and others in positions in the party able to voice ideas on crime – whether they pass Nigel Farage is another matter – have a choice, as do police operationally. Soft or tough; on illegal drugs, zero-tolerance (New York mayor Rudi Guiliani was quoted by Cunningham approvingly, a neat tactic given Guiliani’s Trump connection) versus treating addicts stealing to fund their habit as a public health issue, best treated in terms of prevention rather than punishment; as espoused by Rupert Matthews, the Leicestershire PCC, who switched from Conservative to Reform last year.
Reform, then, have no need to invent wheels; there’s nothing new under the sun. What remains is an internal and presumably opaque debate before the party – if it can manage it – comes up with a ‘law and order’ set of policies, which need not be party-political. For Labour and Conservatives this century have been carrying out much the same policies on crime and each when in office has wrestled with the ‘soft’ versus ‘tough’ conundrum.
It would never hurt to ask what people actually want – such as, to feel safe when they walk to and from work in the dark; and not to have to fear that their children and their friends might be knifed.
