On July 21, 2025, Nigel Farage held a press conference in Westminster, which was also published on YouTube by ITV News under the headline “Farage pledges to ‘halve crime in five years’ in law and order speech.” Nigel Farage, of the Reform UK party, used his speech in this press conference to introduce his party’s plan to cut crime in half within five years of being elected. The next election in the UK is on May 7th of 2026, so less than a year after the start of the campaign. Farage starts his speech with the claim, “The crime survey for England and Wales is based on completely false data.” After this, he goes on to list examples of how run-down the British justice system, according to his research, really is: “Just looking and thinking about London for today, one in three people at some point have been subject to phone theft.” And “[…]You can see the moped gangs running a mock with hardly anybody ever being arrested.”
Farage justifies strict law enforcement plan with false claims about crime rates
Farage’s crime-reduction plan draws on Rudy Giuliani’s “ground-level” approach, arguing that strict enforcement prevents more serious crime. He proposes “zero-tolerance policing,” in which every shoplifting offense is prosecuted. His wider agenda includes fast-track arrest processing, 30,000 additional police officers over five years, repatriation of 10,400 foreign prisoners, fast-track courts, an end to early release, overseas “dynamic” prisons, and new Nightingale prisons. He also vows to scrap diversity, equality, and inclusion roles and raise the physical standards for police, arguing that some fear of the police is beneficial. To fund this, he plans to reduce prison system costs by cutting bureaucracy.
Farage justifies his plan to radicalise the justice system by claiming that crime rates are far higher than reported. He argues that the Crime Survey of England and Wales hides the true scale of crime, and he uses this allegation to defend his proposals. This statement questions the integrity of the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), which is one of the reputable and reliable sources for statistical data. CSEW is one of the largest research surveys conducted in these regions. It collects data by interviewing residents about their experiences with crime over the past 12 months. Published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), this survey is one of two key datasets used to analyse crime statistics, the other being police recorded crime data.
CSEW data collection is based on qualitative interviews
CSEW has been collecting data and publishing data on crime since 1981; until April 2012, it was called the British Crime Survey (BCS). This survey is managed and financed by the Office of National Statistics and is extremely important in understanding crime rates and trends, as it also includes crimes that have not been reported to the police. The data for the survey are collected via face-to-face or phone interviews, and for the report of 2025/26, around 75,000 households across England and Wales had taken part in the survey.
The data collection methodology for CSEW is drawn from qualitative interviews that bring in-depth data and is based on the popular social science research methodology known as qualitative research. Qualitative research is defined as “ the study of the nature of phenomena” and allows researchers to explore more into understanding the cause and effect of social phenomena drawn through non-numerical data to provide a comprehensive study on experiences and feedback.
The CSEW is primarily focused on interviewing individuals of the age group 16 and above, and while it does include a broad range of crime categories, it excludes crimes against the commercial or public sector, tourists, or those living in communal establishments. The primary reason why these categories of crimes are excluded is because of the CSEW methodology of data collection that is specifically designed to measure the experiences of resident and private household populations in England and Wales, whereas these categories would require separate surveys with appropriate data collection methods to produce data. In the last decade, crimes against individuals and households have generally decreased, with a few exceptions, such as fraud.
When it comes to the credibility of the CSEW, the organization was reportedly reviewed in October of 2024 for quality in their reporting data by the Office of Statistical Regulation and passed. A publication by the ONS Centre of Crime and Justice stated, “they comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics.’ “
Official statistics show some crimes in UK have decreased
In comparison to the statistical bulletin published by CSEW in 2024 and 2025 with the year ending (YE) June, knife-enabled crime recorded by police has decreased by 5% in YE June 2025 and 7% lower than the statistics of YE March 2020. The YE March 2025 found no significant statistical difference between YE March 2024 on crimes related to sexual assault. The percentage for crime rates of homicide decreased by 6% with 518 offences in the YE June 2025 whereas 552 offences were recorded in the previous year. This data is pulled from the CSEW statistical bulletin officially published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK’s largest independent producer for statistical data and is also accounted as the national statistical institute of the UK.
Conclusion
Nigel Farage’s claim that “The crime survey for England and Wales is based on completely false data” is false. This claim contradicts the official statistical bulletin and valid qualitative data collection methods utilized by CSEW to provide a brief overview of crime rates and trends. Official reviews confirm that its methodology meets the required standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value. Furthermore Farage gives no details on the research he claims he did himself. He gives no further information on the way he researched, which allegedly disproves the CSEW, or on his results, which prompted him to plan this reformation on the British justice system.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Aditi Shrestha, Fenia Rienecker, Hannah Hayes, Subrishti Karki
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