Shadow Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire Matt Vickers has welcomed Reform UK’s proposal to ban election campaign material from being published in languages not native to the British Isles, arguing that the Conservatives had already put forward similar reforms.

Reform UK announced plans to change electoral law to bar Commonwealth citizens from voting in the UK and to prohibit election leaflets and other campaign literature from being produced in foreign languages. Asked for his reaction, Mr Vickers was unequivocal in his support.

“I’m glad they’re catching up,” he told GB News.

He said the Conservatives had already developed detailed proposals to address the use of non-native-language material in election campaigns, and had gone further than simply announcing the policy. “If you look back, when the issues with literature, pamphlets and leaflets being put out by different parties in different languages came forward, I think we already put a policy forward on that as the Conservative Party,” he said. “We went into the chamber and presented those changes and how they would look. We didn’t just put out a press release, we did the work, we did the thinking, to be able to enact that should we get into office.”

Mr Vickers said the groundwork already done meant the policy could be adopted quickly by the current Government if it chose to. “In fact, it would allow Andy Burnham tomorrow to pick it up and ban such literature,” he said.