Starmer slams celebrating prisoners – ‘I do not wish to launch these individuals’

Keir Starmer has expressed anger at jubilant prisoners celebrating being let out early from jail, saying: “I don’t want to release any of these people”.

One inmate said “big up Keir Starmer” as his family met him in a white Bentley and a black Mercedes G-Wagon outside HMP Swaleside, in Kent, on Tuesday. Another said “thank you, vote Labour” as he was freed.

The second round of early release saw 1,100 inmates were let out from jails in England and Wales after serving 40% of their sentences – rather than 50% – to free up capacity in crisis-hit prisons.

It follows the first release of around 1,700 prisoners from September 10. The latest round expanded eligibility to include those serving sentences of five years or more.

Asked about prisoners bigging him up, the Prime Minister said: “I’m really angry about having to release these prisoners at all in batch one or two.

“I didn’t spend five years of my life as chief prosecutor putting people in prison in order to – as Prime Minister – have to release them because our prisons are overfilled. But we’ve got to do it because they are at bursting point.”

The Prime Minister said the prisons system had been left in a “disgraceful state” by the last Government, where chief constables were warning they wouldn’t be able to arrest people because jails were too full.

Speaking to reporters travelling to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, he said: “Under the previous administration, we had to tell our courts etc to go slower, because we couldn’t fit them into our prisons. That was a really disgraceful state of affairs.

“This is not for me just about party politics – Labour Party comes in and clears up the mess of the Tories. It is that but no Government of any political stripe should allow your prisons to get so full that you can’t run the criminal justice system.”

He added: “I don’t want to release any of these people and I’m angry that we’re having to do so.”