‘What I’m not getting is what your actual policy ideas are’
Andrea Jenkyns failed to explain Reform’s asylum seeker policy and the link between migration and women’s safety in a car crash interview yesterday.
Speaking to Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy after Reform’s conference on ‘women’s safety’, Jenkyns said Reform would “process” and deport asylum seekers living in Britain.
Guru-Murthy pointed out that more than half of asylum seekers are granted leave to remain after being assessed.
Jenkyns said migrants would only be “processed” to determine their country of origin, but didn’t clarify if their claims would be assessed.
In an ironic twist, Jenkyns then asked the journalist: “What I’m trying to understand actually is, this conference is about women, so why are we talking about this?”.
Her question came despite the majority of yesterday’s conference focusing on Reform’s belief that asylum seekers pose a threat to women’s safety and commit more crimes than British people.
Guru-Murthy reminded Jenkyns “Well, because you’re talking about migrants as a safety question.”
“Yes, that’s one aspect of it though,” Jenkyns responded.
She added: “We want to start closing down these hotels so people feel safe in their environment.”
Guru-Murthy highlighted that the majority of sexual crimes are committed by British-born people.
Jenkyns disagreed with this, without providing any proof, but Guru-Murthy interrupted her, stating: “That’s a fact”.
Asked about the low rates of rape case convictions, Jenkyns said the issue is that not all rapes get reported. The Channel 4 presenter had to explain that out of those cases that are reported, only a very small percentage (around 2%) result in a charge.
To tackle this, Jenkyns said Reform would encourage women to report sexual crimes and that she will “[stand] up for those women”.
“I get from your press conference you are saying we stand with you, […] what I’m not getting is what your actual policy ideas are,” Guru-Murthy said.
Jenkyns then agreed with the presenter’s statement that between a third and half of rapes and sexual assaults take place in the home and are committed by a partner or a former partner, and that these had nothing to do with migrants.
Asked by Guru-Murthy what society should do about this, Jenkyns replied: “But some are [committed by migrants] […] some is cultural [sic] as well.”
So, after all of the confusing rhetoric, what is Reform’s actual policy?
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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