BORIS’S WAR ON SOFT JUSTICE

He tells Mail violent criminals must serve full term ++ New stop and search blitz ++ But amnesty for long-term illegal migrants

BORIS Johnson today vows to change the law to ensure vicious thugs and sex offenders are locked up for longer.

The Tory leadership favourite tells the Daily Mail it is wrong that the worst criminals are routinely freed halfway through their prison sentences.

Trying to restore the Tories’ battered reputation as the party of law and order, he also promises to boost police powers to stop and search knife crime suspects.

He has already vowed to put an extra 20,000 officers on the streets.

In the interview, his most revealing and detailed of the leadership campaign, Mr Johnson:

Says he is considering an ‘amnesty’ for tens of thousands of illegal

immigrants who have been in Britain for more than 15 years;

Claims the radical plan would stop a repeat of the Windrush scandal where longterm residents were wrongly deported;

Pours cold water on the idea that he could suspend or ‘prorogue’ Parliament to force a No Deal Brexit;

Declares that his girlfriend Carrie Symonds won’t be meddling in his decisions if he reaches No 10;

Offers the prospect of a scrappage scheme for owners of ageing diesel cars who have seen values plummet due to emissions concerns.

Under Mr Johnson’s sentencing plan, offenders who have been given 14 years or more in jail for violent or sexual offences will be expected to serve their whole term behind bars. Judges will be barred from reducing sentences to compensate.

The move will be seen in part as a response to the notorious case of black cab rapist John Worboys. Although Worboys was subject to an indeterminate sentence for attacks on 12 women, he was recommended for release after serving just ten years.

Mr Johnson’s partner Miss Symonds led a successful campaign against the Parole Board’s decision.

She was targeted as a 19year-old by Worboys, who gave her a spiked drink after offering her a lift home. Mr Johnson insists Miss Symonds will not play a role in deciding policy, telling the Mail: ‘I will be deciding what we do.’

But his decision to act on an issue on which she has campaigned will be seen as a sign of her potential influence.

Mr Johnson says: ‘I’m afraid there are too many people, because of the way the sentencing law works, who have committed serious violence or sexual offences who are being let out, as the law prescribes, after they’ve served only half the sentence that is pronounced in open court.

‘This is happening. And I’m talking about serious sexual or violent offenders. And I think the public is noticing this quite properly. They don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think it’s right.’

Mr Johnson admits the Tories got it wrong on knife crime by bowing to politically correct demands to scale back stop and search.

He promises a ‘relentless focus’ on knife crime, which claimed 100 lives in the first five months of this year.

Turning his fire on Theresa May, who ordered the curbs to stop and search, Mr Johnson says: ‘When it comes to stop and search, the fact is that we went wrong when we decided to change the rules on the best use of stop and search. We made it more difficult. And I think it’s important that we change that balance back.’

Mrs May tightened the law in 2014, describing the stop and search regime as ‘unfair, particularly to young black men’.

The number of stop and search procedures has since fallen by 80 per cent, while knife crime has soared.

The Tories’ reputation on law and order has taken a battering as falling police numbers coupled with rising crime have seen parts of the country likened to the ‘Wild West’.

Last year violent crime rocketed by 19 per cent, with knife thugs, moped attackers and ‘county lines’ drug gangs operating brazenly.

Five former Scotland Yard chiefs yesterday condemned the ‘ emasculation of the police’ under Theresa May, and warned public confidence in the service was reaching ‘perilously low’ levels.

Mr Johnson was also asked what he would do if he couldn’t secure a new deal from the EU and MPs blocked No Deal.

He replies that he didn’t think that would happen ‘in a month of Sundays’.

‘Politics has changed since March 29 and there is a growing understanding in the House of Commons that this is existential for both parties,’ he says.

‘Look at where Labour is now – 18 points. These are not propitious circumstances for either of the main parties and we need to move on and get this thing done.’

Mr Johnson will win almost three quarters of Tory members’ votes, according to a YouGov poll for The Times.

He was on 74 per cent to 26 per cent for Jeremy Hunt.

‘We need to get this done’

When Boris Johnson talks about the internet being ‘the nuclear fission of our age – a development pregnant with boundless possibilities both for good and harm’ he could be referring to himself.

As postal ballot papers fly out to Conservative members this weekend, minds are being concentrated about this volatile, blond-haired force of nature.

The Tory leadership election is far from over, but soundings suggest the contest is Mr Johnson’s to lose. Barring some monumental gaffe (and who would rule one out?) we will, in a few weeks’ time, be living in Boris Britain.

And what an exciting place it could be under this new Prime Minister.

even Mr Johnson’s detractors concede that he radiates energy. he positively fizzes with ideas, promising to propel the country to new heights of prosperity, inventiveness and social cohesion.

In an interview with this newspaper today, he sets out solid policies for the future, seeking to revitalise the political debate.

On street violence, he is prepared to take decisive action to end the deadly scourge of knife crime. And in keeping with his fundamentally liberal instincts, he proposes an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have created decent and productive lives for themselves and their families.

Boris’s understanding of human frailty – often gained at first-hand – is one of his great attributes. In his case, charges of populist Right- wing intolerance are hopelessly wide of the mark. he is clearly a believer in live and let live.

But when atoms split, the result can be explosive.

even as Boris steps over the threshold of number Ten, the clock will be ticking inexorably towards zero hour – October 31, Brexit day.

In an effort to defuse the existential threat posed by nigel Farage and his Brexit Party, this aspirant Prime Minister is betting all his political capital on quitting the eU by then. no ifs, no buts.

This perceived certainty is the factor that will likely prove decisive in his triumph over Jeremy hunt – a decent, pragmatic, managerial politician who many think more trustworthy than Mr Johnson, but painfully lacking in his opponent’s charisma. Mr hunt might beat Jeremy Corbyn in a national vote but he would struggle against the seductive Mr Farage.

Charisma goes only so far, however. In the coming showdown over Brexit, irresistible force – Boris – will meet immovable object, a house of Commons resolutely opposed to no Deal.

Specifics about how Mr Johnson will break the Brexit impasse are sparse. hope for the best but prepare for the worst appears to be his strategy.

endowed with an invincible self-belief, Boris the B-bomb promises that Brussels will blink first. But what if it doesn’t?

When a mature politician like Philip hammond threatens rebellion against his own government to stop Britain crashing out, the scene is set for political pyrotechnics on a scale not witnessed since the fall of Chamberlain’s government in May 1940.

Then, it was Winston Churchill – Mr Johnson’s spiritual north Star – who was the beneficiary. Boris must triumph in this coming encounter, or face political oblivion. he has precisely 100 days to succeed.

After Brexit, there will be another task – healing the division with a Scotland that opposes leaving the eU in any form. It will require all of Boris’s generosity of spirit to revive confidence in the future of the United Kingdom.

Atomic Boris has the potential to powerup a Britain weary of Brexit and the crippling uncertainty it has caused. But in his search for a conclusion he must be careful not to split his party – and more importantly his country – beyond repair over this most fissile issue.