Ending Two-tier Justice

All people are individually responsible for their actions. We hold that all crime should be treated equally seriously, and the same sentence should be given for the same crime regardless of the characteristics of the criminal. This understanding of equality before the law is today being subverted by a growing number of activist magistrates, judges and police officers. The invention of ‘hate crime’ has led to criminals with certain characteristics being treated more harshly than others for the same crime if they are considered to be ‘privileged’ by activists, and more leniently if they are considered to have a ‘protected characteristic’.

The notion that a more severe punishment should be given for a ‘hate crime’ should be rejected. Sentencing for violent crimes must be equally tough regardless of whether or not a criminal has a ‘protected characteristic’, so that the British people can be safe in our own country.

Judgements in criminal cases must be based on objective evidence and not subjective feelings. A defendant has the right of habeas corpus, the right to a fair trial, and is considered innocent until proven guilty. We reject new ‘hate speech’ laws which undermine these fundamental principles and are designed to criminalise speech based on whether a complainant feels offended or uncomfortable.

Political correctness has led to violent crime spiralling out of control, and a systemic failure to deal with certain classes of crimes committed by individuals with ‘protected characteristics’, particularly where there are patterns of criminal behaviour in specific ethnic minorities. It has allowed the problem of grooming and raping of tens of thousands of girls under the age of 16 to fester in hundreds of towns and cities across the country. This is a grave injustice and will be at the top of our priorities to set this country right again. Such heinous crimes do not need new laws; there just needs to be the political will to enforce the laws we already have. 

Trial by Jury

Under our Common Law, all defendants have the right to be judged by a jury of their peers. We will vigorously oppose any erosion of this right and uphold the principle and practice of trial by jury in the whole of the United Kingdom.

Legal Aid

Cuts to legal aid should be reversed. Defendants in all criminal cases should have access to legal aid.

Magistrates Courts

Over 300 Magistrates’ Courts have been closed since 2010, denying local justice to the most disadvantaged and lengthening the wait for a court hearing for tens of thousands of people. Their disposal to housing developers is unforgivable. No more Magistrates’ Courts should be sold off, and new ones need to be opened to replace those which have been closed.

Magistrates’ Courts should only deal with the least serious of offences and we will reduce the maximum sentence that can be imposed by a Magistrates Court to 6 months prison, as it was before it was increased to 12 months in November 2024.

Family Courts

Family Courts must be open and transparent. We will end the privacy and secrecy around family courts and require them to be subject to the same scrutiny as other courts. The safety of children should be the primary concern in rulings made by family courts.

Supreme Court

We will abolish the Supreme Court at return its powers to the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, as it was before Tony Blair’s Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

Appointment of Judges

We will overhaul the process by which judges are appointed, removing all DEI criteria and ensuring that they will uphold and adhere to our Constitution.

At present there is no way to remove activist judges who make repugnant judgments or who implement two-tier justice, letting violent migrants, rapists and paedophiles off with a slap on the wrist while jailing people for years for social media posts they don’t like. This must change. We will legislate to give Parliament the power to impeach and remove a judge, and we will use it to remove.

Treason Act

We will re-introduce the Treason Act that was repealed by Tony Blair.

Domestic Abuse

Criminalising non-violent domestic abuse arouses strong emotions in both proponents and opponents. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 must be reviewed to ensure that it protects victims of genuine non-violent abuse without leaving room for malicious accusations which can ruin the lives of people against whom a false accusation has been made. 

Malicious Accusations

A person who makes a malicious and false allegation of a crime, including rape and domestic abuse, should receive the same sentence as would be handed down to the victim of such a malicious accusation.

Miscarriages of Justice

The number of miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom is alarming, including Andrew Malkinson, the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, the victims of the Post Office Horizon Scandal, and Lucy Letby who is still in prison despite the very thin circumstantial evidence used to convict her having been thoroughly debunked. When there is any doubt as to the safety of a conviction the case must be quashed or re-tried immediately. It is abhorrent to keep an innocent person in prison for years to ‘protect the reputation of British justice’, which is actually undermined by such travesties.

Victims of miscarriages of justice must be properly compensated. There must be a full investigation into each case and any individuals who deliberately perverted the course of justice, whether a judge, a witness or a police officer, should be given the same sentence as the victim.

Double Jeopardy

We will end double jeopardy, which was introduced into the United Kingdom by Tony Blair in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

Extradition Treaties

We would repeal the USA Extradition Treatyand negotiate a new treaty that protects the rights of our citizens under our laws.

Ending Two-tier Policing

We will end the culture of politically correct policing. The job of the police is to protect us from murderers, grooming gangs, burglars, rapists, paedophiles, vandals, thieves and thugs; it is not to kneel before Marxists, make dancing videos for the internet or dress up in rainbows.

Police forces must be required to prioritise and investigate real crimes against the person and property. Ordinary people should not be pursued and harassed by the police for telling jokes, or for expressing what are subjectively perceived to be politically incorrect opinions. 

We will close all DEI units in police forces and fire any so-called ‘Diversity Officers’. We will end all targets connected to ‘hate crime’ whereby police forces harass people for their opinions on social media.

Policing and criminal justice must be re-focussed again on arresting dangerous criminals and jailing them to make our towns and cities safe again, rather than ‘understanding systemic injustices against minorities’. We would increase stop and search in areas where there is the most violent crime to reduce and prevent shootings and stabbings, targeted at groups with a higher propensity to criminality.

British laws must be implemented fully and impartially, irrespective of the culture, ethnicity or religious beliefs of the perpetrators. The police and relevant bodies must take a zero-tolerance approach to unacceptable ‘cultural’ practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriages and polygamy.

Policing by Consent

The UK is policed by the consent of the people and we would ensure that remains so. All police officers must act and behave according to their oath of policing that is outlined in Section 29 of the Police Act 1996.

Community Policing

Policing has become mostly reactive, with preventative policing and building community relations having long been abandoned. Community policing is essential to gain trust and to work with the public to prevent crime, rather than being seen as distant and hostile. We will restore the ethos of Community Policing personified by the British bobby on the beat to all police forces.

Terrorism Act

The Terrorism Acts have increasingly used by police to unlawfully detain and search people who are clearly not terrorists. Police forces must have guidance to end the misuse of terrorism laws against ordinary citizens. The fundamental rights of people detained under Terrorism Act must be restored including the right to silence and the right to consult with a lawyer.

Prevent

Prevent was created to address the rising threat of Islamist terrorism, but has now been captured by activists who increasingly use it to refer patriots and conservatives who are egregiously smeared as ‘far right’ for having concerns about the decline of our nation, despite never committing a crime.

Prevent is no longer fit for purpose and we will scrap it.

Police Recruitment

We will seek to maintain police numbers in England and Wales at around 150,000.

There is no need for policing to be a degree entry requirement profession, indeed it would be detrimental. We will keep police training in-house at Police Training Colleges with recruitment of new officers from across the social spectrum.

In 2013, David Cameron’s Coalition Government introduced direct entry to the senior ranks of policing, thus ending 180 years of tradition which holds that all recruits to the police start their careers as constables. We will reverse this decision. 

Police Stations

Approximately 800 police stations have been closed since 2010, leaving whole towns without a police presence at all. The Heritage Party will block the closure of any more police stations and seek to open new police stations which are necessary to make our country safe again.

Prison Funding and Capacity

The prison service should be adequately funded and prison officers adequately paid.

We will build new prisons as necessary to accommodate the number of persons convicted of imprisonable crimes and ultimately seek to house all prisoners in individual cells to reduce prison violence.

Full Sentences

Currently, most prisoners usually serve only half of their sentence in prison and the rest on licence under probation. For violent offenders, prison sentences should mean what they say, with a maximum of 20% of their sentence served on licence for good behaviour subject to the discretion of prison governors and independent review. 

Ending Private Prisons

We oppose the privatisation of the prison system and will reverse the process. The 14 private prisons run by Serco, G4S and other private companies must be returned to the control of the Department of Justice. All prisoners should be in the custody of officers of the Crown answerable to Ministers and not private companies. 

Foreign Prisoners

Around 12% of the prison population are foreign nationals – over 10,300 in 2025. All foreign prisoners will be deported automatically at the end of their sentences and have a lifetime ban on re-entry to the UK.

We will also deport non-violent foreign criminals currently in prison, and where possible make agreements with foreign states to return violent foreign criminals to serve their sentences in prison in their own countries. This would be cheaper and will act as a deterrent. 

Segregation

The prison system has become a breeding ground for the propagation of criminality, and gangs hold sway in many prisons. We support the separation of prisoners who behave violently, propagate criminality and become prison gang leaders.

There is a specific problem with aggressive radical Muslim gangs in prisons who force other prisoners into becoming Muslims for protection. We will introduce segregation of prisoners by religion and race so that Muslims, White British, White Other and Black prisoners are placed in separate prisons where possible, or at the very least, in separate wings where they do not mix.

Probation

The probation service should remain in government control and not be privatised.

Strong Armed Forces

The first duty of the armed forces is the defence of the realm. The managed decline of the British armed forces must stop and it must be restored to at least 2000 levels with an Army of 110,000, a Royal Air Force of 55,000 and a Royal Navy of 45,000. 

We should once again become a strong military power that can act positively where necessary and when it is in our national interests, including deployment around our sea borders to prevent illegal immigration and to ensure that our airspace, 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone and underwater infrastructure is secure.

Our military personnel should be supplied with all the equipment they need to do the jobs they are asked to do. This includes a greater number of aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates and submarines to replace those which have been decommissioned, and enough suitable barracks and living quarters for servicemen and their families.

Disasters and Emergencies

Our armed forces should take on Disaster and Emergency Relief on behalf of the nation rather than NGOs. The part of the foreign aid budget for disasters and emergencies should be re-allocated to the armed forces so they can carry out this function quickly and efficiently.

Military Independence

There must be no control of our armed forces by anyone apart from the UK government. We must pull out and stay out of all programmes and schemes which even hint at joint control or management of our military with the EU including the European Defence Agency (EDA), the European Defence Fund (EDF), the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the Coordinated Annual Review of Defence (CARD) and Security Action for Europe (SAFE)

Non-engagement in foreign conflicts

The UK should not become entangled in far-away foreign conflicts which have nothing to do with our national interests and only benefit the chaos mongers of the military-industrial complex who profit from war. Since the end of the cold war, successive governments have sent our armed forces to engage in unnecessary military action in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Palestine that was neither for the defence of the realm or the protection of the British people. On the contrary, the damage to the long-term stability of multiple nations has created migration crises that are detrimental to social cohesion and public safety at home. 

In the future, we should hold to the principle of non-engagement in third party conflicts and de-escalation of tensions at the earliest possible juncture to avoid unnecessary death, suffering, homelessness and migration.

Recruitment

Armed Forces Careers Centres should not have been outsourced, and we will bring them back in-house. By ensuring that our servicemen have better accommodation and equipment and access to excellent training in skills, we aim to make a career in the armed forces an attractive career option for young people once again

The choice to enter the armed forces should remain voluntary. We will not bring back National Service. 

We will not introduce conscription, except in the case that our own nation is under physical attack, and certainly not to fight in foreign wars in places such as Ukraine or the Middle East.

Veterans

We will establish a Veterans’ Department, headed by a government minister, organisationally independent and financially separate from the Ministry of Defence. This Ministry will promote and protect the interests of veterans in a variety of fields: for example, housing, health care, education and training.

We would seek to guarantee a job offer with the police, prison service, the UK Border Force, or emergency services, for anyone who has successfully served in the Armed Forces for a minimum of twelve years.

Skills gained in the Armed Forces can be useful when running a small business. We will create a ‘Boots to Business’ scheme to channel loans, grants and access to free professional advice and mentors, to veterans who wish to set up and run their own businesses after leaving the armed forces.

It is a disgrace that veterans who served in Northern Ireland more than 40 years ago are being dragged through the courts in grotesque show-trials, while IRA terrorists have been given an amnesty. We will end the spurious hounding of serving personnel and veterans, bringing forward legislation to prevent veterans from being pursued by police and prosecutors many years after the event for actions they undertook in good faith whilst they were in the service of the nation.