More than HALF of women say they do not feel safe in their local area - as Labour minister admits there are not enough police on the streets
More than half of women are now concerned for their personal safety in their local area, new polling for Reform UK has revealed.
Some 60 per cent of women fear for their safety when out shopping or going for a walk and 51 per cent are worried about being harassed or sexually assaulted.
Reform leader Nigel Farage described it as the ‘next big issue in British politics’ and said Labour and the Tories have ‘prioritised the interests of illegal migrants over the safety of women and girls’.
It comes as the party launched a new drive to tackle violence and sex assaults against women and girls as Reform’s only female MP blamed migrants with ‘medieval views’ for a decline in public safety.
Meanwhile a Labour minister admitted that ‘there aren't enough police officers on our streets’ while Kemi Badenoch said women have stopped jogging in the park because of ‘men lurking in bushes’.
Polling shared exclusively with the Daily Mail shows that 60 per cent of women are concerned about their safety in public - with a quarter saying they are ‘very concerned’.
Even amongst men, some 38 per cent say they are now concerned for their safety in public and 12 per cent are very concerned.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described it as the ‘next big issue in British politics’ and said Labour and the Tories have ‘prioritised the interests of illegal migrants over the safety of women and girls’
Over half of women are worried about the risk of sexual assault or harassment and this is felt more amongst younger people, with 63 per cent of 25-34 year olds concerned about the risk, the poll by Survation found.
Damian Lyons Lowe, chief executive of the pollster, said the findings shows a ‘stark gender divide in perceptions of safety’.
He added: ‘These perceptions feed into a wider public mood that favours tougher sentencing, with strong majority support for life sentences without parole for the most serious crimes.’
The representative poll of 2,131 UK adults found that Britons resoundingly support minimum sentences of 10 years or life imprisonment for physical, violent, and sexual crimes.
A large majority are in favour of convicted criminals never having the chance to be released early while 72 per cent back life sentences without parole for serious crimes such as murder or terrorism.
And by far the most popular punishment for repeat offenders of minor crimes such as shoplifting is longer prison sentences of a year or more, with 42 per cent backing this compared to 15 per cent who were in favour of electronic tagging.
When it comes to which party the public trusts to reduce crime in the UK, Reform has a nine-point lead over Labour with 35 per cent backing the party to best tackle crime.
Labour women and equalities minister Baroness Jacqui Smith said she ‘shares the concerns’ of Reform about women feeling safe in this country and admitted that ‘there aren't enough police officers on our streets’
However a significant proportion - some 27 per cent - chose neither when asked which party they trusted most to bring crime levels down in Britain.
It comes as former home secretary Baroness Jacqui Smith said she ‘shares the concerns’ of Reform about women feeling safe in this country and admitted that ‘there aren't enough police officers on our streets’.
The Labour women and equalities minister told Times Radio: ‘I think what it says about the state of the country is that the last government undermined our neighbourhood policing so that it's not surprising that people in communities aren't feeling the confidence that we would want them to feel.’
But on Reform’s criticism Baroness Smith said that the party had voted against legislation to keep women safe, adding: ‘They're very good at pointing at problems, slightly less good at actually getting behind the solutions.’
It came as Kemi Badenoch said that women have ‘stopped jogging in the park because there are men lurking in bushes’.
Referring to her visit to Epping on Monday, the Conservative leader told reporters: ‘Mothers told me that they're worried about their daughters going to school. They're getting harassed. They stopped jogging in the park because there are men lurking in bushes.
‘Communities shouldn't have to be paying for this. And what I saw in Epping really, really upset me. I can see why many of those people are protesting.’
