Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin said illegal migrants from “predominantly Muslim” countries put women “at risk of sexual assault”.

The MP for Runcorn and Helsby drew attention to asylum seekers arriving on small boats who were originally from Afghanistan.Ms Pochin said: “The inconvenient truth for the left is that the culture of men from predominantly Muslim countries like Afghanistan is one that holds a medieval view of women’s rights.

“It is fundamentally alien to the centuries of progress made by our own western culture and attitudes.

“Women are at risk of sexual assault and rape from these men, hundreds of young men who arrive in this country, housed in our communities, who undoubtedly become sexually frustrated, have a warped view of their right to sexually assault women.”

She claimed that of 1,453 sexual assault convictions in 2024, a quarter were committed by foreign nationals.

Ms Pochin said: “Afghan men are three times more likely to be convicted of a sexual offence than someone born in the United Kingdom and represent the largest group of migrants who commit sexual violence against women, and yet we know that 18,000 at least, were covertly let into this country by the last government with no security vetting.”

She said Reform would deport all small boats migrants who live in houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs), who have been moved out of hotels.

The party would deport foreign criminals, she added at the event in Westminster, and said police would be made to respond to every “inappropriate sexual behaviour” report made against a migrant.

The Runcorn MP says there are no “DNA swabs taken”, nothing to “help our police and security services investigate and detect crime”.

Why? “Because the left-wing lawyers are crying human rights”.

She added: “If any of you have been to the United States recently, your fingerprints are taken.

“My facial biometrics were taken, and if you’ve read recently, Europe is about to do the same.”

In my opinion: I’ve sat in the room and listened to the press conference.

What stood out for me is that the Reform politicians are saying things that some voters clearly agree with – that there is an “invasion” for example, and that migrants from some foreign countries are a danger to women- which politicians from other parties, rightly or wrongly, will never say out loud.

‘Only a reform government will protect women’ says Sarah Pochin

Ms Pochin told a Westminster press conference: “I hope people stop calling them small boats, because they’re clearly not small boats.

“They are very large boats.

“Officially, there are 210 registered asylum hotels currently housing migrants in the UK.

“Yet, despite the Government to promising to close all of these hotels by 2029, we see the exact opposite happening.

“Even more being opened.”

Sarah Pochin says people from Afghanistan have a different view of women because of the culture of their country. ‘The data has been covered up for too long’

She says ‘it’s no wonder’ there are now guardian angel style street patrols and ‘mass protests’ by mothers ‘who are afraid for the safety of their daughters’

A ‘daily influx of people who do not share our values’ are being welcomed into our country, says Reform MP Sarah Pochin

Kent County Council leader Linda Kemkaran added that migrants are being placed in “our towns and villages, requisitioning guest houses, blocks of flats, small hotels and HMOs.

“It is happening by stealth in Kent and all over the country, and still, day by day, the boats keep coming.”

The Government places dangerous criminals in accommodation near schools and acts schocked when mums object, says Laila Cunningham

The Kent County Council leader said she was branded a racist for demanding an end to the Channel migrant crisis.

And she claimed opposition members stormed out of a council meeting and swore at her.

She added: “That’s not just utterly disgraceful behaviour from elected officials, but a total pig-headed refusal to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth.

“I wondered if their anger stemmed from all these pesky women complaining about being raped and sexually assaulted.”

Westminster councillor Laila Cunningham says she risked her life to catch people who robbed her children when police refused to act.

She was called a “vigilante mum”, she says

Kent residents are “furious” at their county being “invaded” by people fleeing the safe country of France says council leader

Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran says illegal migration has made women and girls less safe.

Ms Kemkaran described the Channel migrant crisis as an “invasion” because “thousands of undocumented men who have come from countries where violence is the norm and women are not even second class citizens, is placing women and girls in grave danger”.

Leader of Kent Council Linden Kemkaran says women are less safe because of an ideology that says men should be allowed in women’s spaces and because of an “invasion” of illegal immigrants

Andrea Jenkyns says she is a mother and she has breasts

Dame Andrea slams the Tory record on the NHS, which led to phrases such as “breast feeding” being replaced with “chest feeding”.

She says women and girls have lived “through decades when police and politicians have turned a blind eye to the grooming of our children, and we’ve seen a rise in domestic abuse.”

Yet, Dame Andrea warned police are becoming the “thought police”, adding that the UK is living in an Orwellian nightmare.

Reform Lincolnshire mayor Andrea Jenkyns talks about the death threats and other threats she has received, which the police refused to take action on.

“I don’t feel safe” she says, and children have been “indoctrinated” in school

Dame Andrea reveals the horrific abuse female politicians receive.

The Mayor says she has been told to buy a stab vest dozens of times, had her address published online, death threats.

She tells reporters: “I don’t feel safe.”

Britain is no longer a “safe haven”, as she criticised the crime and policing records of the Government, and the Conservative one she served in.

Dame Andrea, speaking at Reform’s HQ in central London, detailed examples of abuse and threats she had faced as a Conservative MP and since being elected as a Reform mayor. She gave examples, including death threats, which she said were not taken seriously enough.

She said: “This is just the experience everybody of one person, myself. I couldn’t get justice. But imagine every village, every town, every inch of our country.

“These daily occurrences that we are all witnessing that proves that we are soft touch Britain. When are they going to get justice?

“I don’t feel safe, and as a mother, I no longer feel that our children live in a safe, beautiful haven of Britain that I grew up in.”

Reform’s politicians will appear before the cameras.

The theme of this event is Reform’s growing support among female voters, and concern that crime is making women unsafe.

The Reform UK press conference will be live on the Daily Express website.

Reform are holding a press event to highlight crime and their growing support among female voters

During the interview Ms Sturgeon is also asked by ITV’s Julie Etchingham about her description of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as “odious” in her memoir.

She said: “This is my impression, other people might have a different view of him. He just comes across as somebody who’s got a very, very fragile ego.

“Somebody who’s not particularly comfortable, particularly around women.

“In the 2015 leaders debate just before we went on air that night, I just remember hearing him tell somebody how much he’d had to drink, in the green room area beforehand, and it just felt this kind of bravado and just not very pleasant.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has declared the safety of women and girls is “the next big issue in British politics”.

Posting on X ahead of his press conference this morning, Mr Farage turned his anger on the Tories and Labour.

He said: “The uni-party has completely failed to keep women and girls safe. This is the next big issue in British politics.”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, perhaps in an attempt to get the message out first, warned that the Channel migrant crisis is also a “safety crisis”.

He wrote in a blog on ConservativeHome: “This isn’t just a border crisis, it’s a public safety crisis as well – especially for women and girls. Those who peacefully protest against this outrage are right to do so.

“While Labour’s position is one of quiet surrender, Reform UK have chosen a different path: loud noise without a plan.

“Nigel Farage has already said that mass deportations are not his goal. His party promised a full immigration plan way back in May and there has still been none.

“All we have seen from Reform is a string of vague unfunded pronouncements and a conspicuous silence when it comes to detail. The public deserve better than posturing.

“But we must also be honest. Previous Conservative governments did not take enough radical steps to stop illegal immigration.

“We were too deferential to expansive court judgments which over-rode parliament and to instruments such as Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act.”