Labour “cared more about criminals than their victims” under Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s new justice chief claims today.
Steve Reed, a shadow minister under the last leader, branded the Tories “soft on crime” as he launched a bid to harden Labour ’s message on law and order.
In his first sit-down interview since Keir Starmer named him Shadow Justice Secretary, Mr Reed said Tony Blair “got this right” with the slogan “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” in the 1990s.
He revealed he would "absolutely look at" a “naming and shaming” scheme against people who buy recreational drugs under a Labour government.
And he called for a wave of “pop-up” courts, priority for rape cases, and to keep temporary Covid ‘Nightingale’ courts open to tackle the soaring case backlog.
The 58-year-old also opened up about how his outlook changed after he was robbed by two men with a knife that nicked his throat.
Mr Reed said he took years to “mentally recover” after the incident in his youth, which helped him understand the public’s desire for “retribution”.
Moved from Local Government to Justice in November’s reshuffle, ex-council leader Mr Reed has been on the front bench since 2013 - apart from for four months in 2016, after he resigned calling for Mr Corbyn to step down.
But slamming his party’s past record, he told the Mirror: “Given the period that Labour’s gone through over the last 10 years, but particularly under the last leadership - the days when Labour cared more about the criminals than about their victims are well and truly over.”
Mr Reed said rehabilitation and tackling the causes of crime are essential. But he added: “I think when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader, we gave the impression that we were more concerned about the criminals than about their victims.
“And I think Blair got this right actually. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime is the right thing to do. I think the public understand the balance between those two aspects.
“There are things in people’s lives that make them more likely to offend, but you can get out of balance with that.
“And I think if you over-focus on the things that have happened in people’s lives that lead them to offend, it can sound like you’re trying to excuse what they’ve done.
“We cannot, because they’ve damaged someone else’s life.”
Mr Reed recalled how he was robbed at knifepoint when living in a house share in Clapham, south London, more than 20 years ago.
He said: “I walked round a secluded corner, two guys jumped out, held a knife at my throat, took my wallet out of my pocket, took the bag that I was carrying, which had a book of photos that I’d borrowed from somebody.
“It was a very scary experience. You don’t know when it’s at your throat whether it’s going to go in or not.
“By the time I got back there was a nick across my throat where the knife had been held.”
Mr Reed said it “took me a good few years to fully mentally recover from that”, and even now he does not wear headphones when walking at night.
“You’re really shaken,” he said. “You focus a lot on what might have happened… They could have just cut my throat, and that weighs on you.
“I wanted them punished for what they’d done for me, I wanted them stopped from potentially doing that to other people.
“I fully understand the urge that people have, the natural instinctive urge for punishment and retribution.”
The MP claimed the Tories “talk tough but act soft” after austerity hit police, courts, legal aid and prisons, turning jails into “colleges of crime” with rising drug use that make rehabilitation more difficult.
A National Audit Office report in October found the criminal courts backlog will still be around 50,000 cases by November 2024.
The number of sexual offence trials waiting longer than a year soared by 435% during Covid. Tory ministers insist that is beginning to come down.
Mr Reed said courts should fast-track rape and sexual violence cases, while opening pop-up courts to handle offences like burglary, shoplifting and car crime.
He said Tory ministers have “effectively decriminalised rape” as only 1.5% of cases lead to a prosecution. The average wait for a rape case to complete its court journey recent topped 1,000 days for the first time.
“Being told they will have to wait three years to get to trial leads a lot of them to drop the case,” he said. “A high proportion of sexual offenders live in the same neighbourhood as their victims, and their victims are terrified of bumping into those offenders during that period.”
He called on ministers to extend ‘Nightingale courts’ set up during Covid, use unused rooms in existing courts and make more use of community organisations.
But he did not commit to building new court houses under Labour, saying: “I don’t know what the backlog will look like at that point.”
Nor did he back compensation for victims of the court backlog, saying: “I’d much rather we spent the money on getting them justice quicker.”
Keir Starmer said last month he is against decriminalising drugs, despite calls to relax the law on substances like cannabis.
Mr Reed highlighted a scheme naming and shaming people who are convicted of buying drugs, that ran in Brixton while he was leader of Lambeth Council.
Asked if the same could happen under a Labour government he replied: “We’d absolutely look at it. It’s important you do it with each locality because they understand what their needs are.
“We wanted to send out the signal that, if you think it’s acceptable to come and buy drugs here, and leave behind you the trail of destruction the drugs trade causes on our streets, we will do everything we can to stop you and we will let your friends, family and employers know what you’ve done.”
The MP also said it was a “tragedy” when Tony Blair’s anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) were axed a decade ago.
Mr Reed said the Tories’ privatised probation was “an unmitigated disaster” and ministers were right to reverse it.
But he did not rule out the use of private firms or charities in future, saying: “I’m more interested in what works than what sector it’s in.”
And asked if he would bring privately-run prisons under state control, he replied: “We’d look at this on a case by case basis.”
It appears a long way from Labour’s 2019 manifesto, which promised a “presumption in favour” of bringing services back in-house.
On this, however, Mr Reed is clear. He said: “The 2019 manifesto is no longer the Labour Party ’s policy platform.
“We will be coming up with a brand new manifesto for the next election that will be based squarely on the priorities of the British people as they are at that point.”
From protests to voting for gay marriage
Steve Reed thought it was his “destiny” to join his dad, grandparents, uncles and aunts at Odhams, a women’s magazine printers in Watford, Hertfordshire.
When disgraced Mirror tycoon Robert Maxwell announced he would shut the plant in 1982, he instead became the first in his family to go to university.
After studying English in Sheffield he moved to London, working for educational publishers Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Sweet & Maxwell, and International Thomson.
But Labour was “in my blood”, he said, after delivering leaflets aged six, joining the party “pretty much on my 16th birthday” and becoming a union shop steward.
He was a 33-year-old volunteer organiser when Labour won the 1997 election. It was “electric”, he “got the bug” and won a seat on Lambeth Council the next year.
Rising to leader in 2006, he planned to turn Lambeth into a ‘co-operative council’ based on the model of John Lewis with residents taking control of services.
It was not all harmonious. He once accused a Labour member of leaking information after he passed him a fake fact in a ‘Wagatha Christie’-style sting operation.
Mr Reed won the nomination for the Croydon North seat in 2012 by just three votes, beating Val Shawcross who is now running to be the first elected Mayor of Croydon.
He said being gay has given him an “insight into what it’s like to be victimised by a government”.
When he voted for equal marriage in Parliament, months after winning a by-election, he recalled how he marched against Section 28 in the late 1980s.
“And yet here I was, relatively few short years later in Parliament standing up and voting through equal marriage.
“And what a story of change that is for our country, but it also symbolised my own journey, from protesting outside Parliament to voting for change inside Parliament.”
Asked how he’d survived on the front bench under Miliband, Corbyn and Starmer, he joked: “We’ve got far fewer MPs to choose from!”
Though he singled out Tony Blair for praise, he was reluctant to be pinned down on his philosophy: “I’ve never thought of myself as a Blairite, as it happens.
“That’s probably because I joined Labour aged 16 before anyone had ever heard of Tony Blair of Gordon Brown or Jeremy Corbyn. I just think of myself as Labour.”
He appeared startled when I asked if he’d ever consider running for the leadership one day.
He insisted he was not without ambition, but replied: “I’ve got no intention of doing that, no”. Ever? “No.”
'Mortified' by 'puppet master' trope
Mr Reed apologised to the Jewish community in 2020 after he tweeted asking if Richard Desmond was a ‘puppet-master for the entire Tory cabinet’.
He was referring to claims the tycoon lobbied the government, but was criticised for using an anti-Semitic trope.
The MP repeated his apology, and insisted the offence was inadvertent. “I didn’t know Richard Desmond was Jewish,” he said.
“The reference was to the Mafia-style politics that [Tory minister] Robert Jenrick was engaging in.
“In the context of Mafia-style politics, I think I’d recently watched The Godfather film, and the logo for that is a puppet.”
Mr Reed, who has previously spoken out against anti-Semitism, added: “I was very heavily involved in setting up the centre for countering digital hate, which led a lot of the work in combatting anti-Semitism, inside and outside the Labour Party, both today and back then.
“And we work very closely with the Community Security Trust, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and others in setting that up.”
The incident clearly still plays on his mind. After our interview he got in touch again. "I am still mortified about it, given my strong relationship with the Jewish community,” he said.
“It was a lesson learned about the importance of choosing the language I use carefully."
