The Solicitors Regulation Authority would be among organisations targeted for abolition on day one of a Reform government, a close lieutenant of party leader Nigel Farage has told the Gazette. 'The SRA needs to be abolished post-haste,' Arron Banks, the serial entrepreneur who played a key told in the Brexit campaign, said. The Legal Services Act, would be one of a swath of Blair-era statutes to be swept away by a 'big beautiful reform bill', Banks said.
Other casualties would include the Judicial Appointments Commission and 'the whole equality and diversity thing'.
Banks was speaking as Farage unveiled Reform UK's 'Operation Restoring Justice', described as a 'five-year emergency prgramme intended to identify, detain and deport illegal immigrants from the United Kingdom, and to deter any further build-up.' This would require leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, repealing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a 'British Bill of Rights' and new primary legislation in the form of an 'Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill'.
However Banks said a Reform government's justice reforms would not be limited to the immigration issue. ‘It goes deeper than this,' he said, 'the justice system has ground to a halt.’ The solution? ‘Elimination of the Blair reforms, both in criminal and commercial law.'
The party will spend the next two years formulating a measure with which to hit the ground running if it wins the next general election, Banks said. He aims to emulate Donald Trump's second presidential term, rather than his first. 'We’re going to spend a couple of years framing the legislation and be ready to go on Day 1. It will involve repeal of most of the legislation of the past 20 years, wholesale.’
Other ideas for the justice system include strengthening the role of magistrates to dispense speedy summary justice 'rather than turning every trial into a full production number'. However Banks expressed scepticism about the Leveson proposals on limiting jury trials - which 'should be kept for where liberty is at risk'.
In civil law, he described as 'obscene' the profit margins made by City firms 'while smaller rivals are being crushed to pieces'. The former insurance chief was also highly critical of the PI claims sector, proposing the New Zealand model of no-fault compensation for clinical negligence. ‘We could go to no-fault tomorrow if you really wanted to.’
Repeal of the Legal Services Act would return the legal profession to self-regulation by professionals, he said. ‘I can’t see how the SRA has in any shape or form improved the professional standards of lawyers.’ The same applies to judges. 'We need to systematically undo years of bad legislation. Let the judges be back in control.'
A full interview with Arron Banks will appear in the 5 September edition of the Gazette
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