This is the first in a series of posts on the politics of Nigel Farage and Reform, all of which treat the two as effectively synonymous, as history has proven that to be the right thing to do.
Each post asks the same question - Why vote for reform? - within a different context.
A summary of all the posts to date will be provided at the end of each post in due course.
Each post is also appearing on YouTube and other social media platforms.
Introduction
Nigel Farage says he wants to slash benefits if Reform comes to power. But who actually relies on benefits in the UK? The truth may surprise you:
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The vast majority of benefit spending goes to pensioners and people in work.
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Only a few per cent go to the unemployed.
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Millions of families depend on Universal Credit to cover rent, food, and bills.
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Disability support and help for children with special needs would be cut too.
Farage's plans would devastate millions of households. Poverty would explode. And even if you think you're not directly affected, someone you know almost certainly would be.
This video explains why voting for Reform is voting for hardship — for yourself, your family, your friends, and your neighbours.
This is the transcript:
Why would anyone vote for Reform?
Why, in particular, would anyone vote for Reform when Nigel Farage is promising big benefit cuts in this country?
That's despite the fact that what we know is that millions of people are dependent upon benefits in the UK.
The vast majority of those people are either pensioners, because pensions are, of course, a benefit in the Nigel Farage world, or they're working because most universal credits and most disability allowances go to people who are in work, and a tiny proportion of all benefits go to the unemployed - maybe 2% or 3%.
The fact is that for the vast majority of people who get benefits in the UK, they're essential to cover the rent, to cover the bills, to cover food, to put literally meals in front of children.
There are literally millions of families who rely on universal credit to try to make ends meet, and despite that, we know the number of children in real poverty in the UK is rising.
And, Nigel Farage also wants to end some benefits that come in kind, like the support for children who need it at school because they have special educational needs, or the support that is supplied to people because they have disabilities of some sort or other.
Nigel Farage wants children to suffer.
He wants millions of people to suffer.
He wants to punish people for being poor.
He wants them to lose their homes because they won't be able to pay the rent.
He wants to make the disabled and the vulnerable the most hard-up people in the UK, and those least able to take part in our society.
The fact is, poverty will explode under Reform. And even if you think you won't be impacted by what Nigel Farage is talking about - although many millions of people who might vote for Reform will be - I can almost guarantee you that somebody you know would be really badly hit by what Farage is proposing.
Ask your family.
Ask your friends.
Ask your neighbours.
Ask about who needs benefits? Who's got benefits? Who couldn't survive without benefits? And then realise that Farage's cuts would destroy lives.
Why would you want to vote for that to happen? I'm completely bemused by the action of anybody who did.
Please care about your neighbours.
And care about the fact that Farage wants to destroy their well-being, and think again about Reform.
Taking further action
If you want to write a letter to your MP on the issues raised in this blog post, there is a ChatGPT prompt to assist you in doing so, with full instructions, here.
One word of warning, though: please ensure you have the correct MP. ChatGPT can get it wrong.
Comments
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The putative policies of Reform aka the chancer, Nigel Farage, cannot stand up to any scrutiny, although they might appeal to people who do no critical thinking. It’s easy answers to complex problems which is the laziest possible approach to politics.
The fact that these policies mimic those of Trump – the ‘king over the water’ should really be enough to see Farage off. Trump is an unapologetic fascist and British people won’t have any of that. Our forefathers spilt blood fighting fascism and we are not likely to forget it.
Trump is an unapologetic fascist and British people won’t have any of that.
Isn’t this attitude part of the problem with Farage? Labelling British people as something special who won’t have any of that fascism business. British people are different. They are not like that stupid Americans… or French… or Germans… or whatever. This attitude has made Farage into the media darling who never had to go through proper questioning.
But – polls shows that 35 per cent of the British would vote for Farage’s fascism. With British FPTP, British lack of written constitution and GB being an extremely centralized state, Farage can get practically unlimited power with even much less than 35 per cent of the vote. In no other country in Europe could this happen.
As Farage’s gone proper neo-nazi now with the mass expulsion proposals of people with the indefinite leave to remain or proposals to withdraw all the benefits to UK citizens who were not born in the UK, I’m really interested to see if this is going to do anything to his party in the projections. I suppose not as the response has been incredibly weak – both by the MSM and the government.
Pointing out to Reform supporters that cutting state spending on benefits is likely to devastate lives will I fear fall on deaf ears and merely elicit slogans pitting “strivers” against “shirkers”. Perhaps a more fruitful line of attack might be to point out the likely deflationary effects of drastic cuts in state spending on benefits. Those who currently work in the caring professions would face job losses and cut backs in their income as would local shops and businesses in areas where the economy relies on state spending and we would risk a downwards spiral in the economy which would be hard to stem. I think if Farage were ever to get in and try to implement his policies we would very soon see economic devastation worse than that already inflicted. Surely there has to be a way to explain this in simple terms so that people can understand. It is not just a question of fairness and compassion for the poor. It is a question of economic survival for all of us. The better off the poor are, the more they are likely to spend their money and that is good for the rest of us too. It is the rich who hoard their money who actually do damage to the economy. Or is that too simplistic?
I disagree.
Vast numbers planning to vote for Reform are in receipt of benefits. Primary impacts are what I am lookling at in this series.
Primary devastating impact on benefit recipients, including ordinary child benefit (?). Also Primary devastating effect on all businesses where benefits are spent
Very fair points. Fart-rage & co are story tellers & their stories have resonated with people (apparently even those getting money from the state to allow them to live). The opposition (us) needs stories.
Cuts in benefits affect mostly hard-working families makeing them hard-working hungry families.
Cuts in benefits means hard-working families have less to spend – which the local economy, where they spend, gets smaller.
Cuts in benefits means less tax collected (most benefit payments are rapidly recovered as tax)
ect etc.
Make story. Fight lying stories with true stories (that people can understand).
I am working on ideas around this….
I have just finished reading Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 book, It can’t happen here. As the jacket quotes, ‘eerily prescient’.
After the effect of Mr Bates vs the Post Office, I think there’s a role for high quality TV drama to help explain what the risks are for falling for the glib promises of people like Farage, or Windrip as his counterpart in the novel is aptly named. Any TV execs or screen writers out there?
People won’t vote for Reform if they can identify that the real culprit for their woes is inequality, not immigrants. Zach Polanski is doing a good job to present that idea, but for it to really cut through it would have to be supported by the Labour government. But they’re getting it all badly wrong. People are suffering, almost everywhere you look the wheels are coming off, things are falling apart. Farage and much of the MSM including the BBC have been telling everyone for years that immigration is the reason you can’t get a decent-paying job, can barely afford to live, let alone have a decent life. Labour’s biggest failing has been to aid and abet this narrative rather than push back against it, even though this clearly validates Reform’s arguments and will help Farage get into No. 10 in 2029. Starmer will likely be replaced before the next election. Will the next Prime Minister steer the government away from it’s ruinous course? Or will they double down on scapegoating and anti-immigration rhetoric rather than risk people identifying inequality – which they will do nothing about – as the real source of their woes? I think the most likely eventuality is that PM Burnham (or whoever) will attempt a half-hearted, triangulating reset that will do little to turn things around because whatever they say it won’t be backed up with sufficiently vigorous action to improve the lives of ordinary people. So in 2029 Labour and Conservatives will lose seats to both the left and to the right. Then the best we can hope for is a hung parliament in which Reform and the Tories don’t have enough seats to form a government together.
Thanks
The UK is a vassal state of Trump’s USA. Garage and deform parrot the Heritage Foundation garbage that Trump is following plus his own warped barbs.
Think Brexit and the US 2024 Presidential election. Trump said he was going to deport
11/12 mn illegals. The farmers voted yes and they are now going bust. Those on benefits have lost them.
Are they screaming traitor? Afraid not.
What was the UK told by garage and the rest get back sovereignty and the UK will get a super trade deal with the US post Brexit. Of course it has not happened.
Those who vote deform in the next UK election will not be thinking about their personal circumstances, they want to expel Johnnie foreigner and hit the benefit scroungers.
A refrom/Tory coalition is a horror I never thought of. Feel sick just thinking about it.
This link below is to a comment on your video on YouTube. I am confident that there are millions and millions that feel the same. I also strongly suspect that many that have not voted in the past will turn out to vote for Reform for the same reasons. I’m beginning to think the best we can hope for is a hung parliament
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rkuJ05z4xBI&lc=UgyleMTl-9ADvy9uknx4AaABAg&si=nlzT3tH2S__ZdyAU
Unless we plug away we will never beat them
Simon – which comment specifically do you wish to highlight?
The link just goes to the video in general, and not a particular comment (for me, anyhow).
Agreed
I didn’t realise that. I’m out and about at the moment and copying and pasting specific comment on my phone from YouTube difficult. Basically comment is ‘Even if Reform do half of what is says it’ll be better than what we currently have’. Comment by @aficio698
And my answer is, no it won’t.
There are nine more in this series to come, with another ten also being considered and in sketch outline.
I hate to sound defeatist, but populism is what it is and hard to defeat…Johnson?….Trump?…..Farage?….I fear for the future. Scandals, hard facts, whatever…..try arguing in a pub with those who just pick up the basic racist rhetoric.
Nigel Farage is pushing the UK toward decline by targeting highly skilled immigrants—law-abiding, hardworking taxpayers who fuel the economy, pay hefty visa fees and healthcare surcharges, International students pay 4 times the fee compared to a British Citizen. Those who are working spend their earnings in the UK to keep Britain economy moving. His rhetoric is reckless, divisive, and steeped in far-right, even fascist, ideology, all while businesses and citizens continue to leave the country. Farage has a reputation for heavy drinking and has faced criticism for personal and professional issues, raising questions about his reliability as a leader. He is trying Copy/Paste Far Right Ideas from US to UK. Horrible Human Being – Bigoted/Racist man must be banned from my home country India.
I’m ashamed to say that I am a landlord it’s how I supplement my pension, it’s the best monthly return on my capital that I can find. I was homeless once myself, so I try very hard to be an ethical landlord and care for my tenants who are all social housing tenants. One is disabled and vulnerable. Another is a single parent working two (professional) jobs and spending the bulk of her income on child care. They are stigmatised as a burden on society. But they are not the burden it’s me the benefits come to not them. I did not create the situation our governments did but I can chose to benefit from it or to suffer from it myself.
It’s my own guilt that forces me to embrace left wing politics. I’ll never vote for the right.
For some, ‘stopping the boats’ will be justified by cutting their noses off to spite their faces. I can’t see this making them think at all. But as you say you have to have a go.
It still rankles though with me that this bloke Farage is a well off man, colluding with other well off men who think that politics is just a bit of fun, and people cannot question this. It is no better than the corrupted Labour government who are also being pushed along by vested interests.
And on the Left, Sultana and Corbyn have already had a big fall out. Already! Apparently. And thanks for that, BTW.
I was watching Trump at the UN yesterday and I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It was absurd but also real. He did say what he said. And they sat there and took it. He should have been laughed out of the hall. But let’s face it, most of the post war institutions have been rendered useless by the U.S. corporations manipulating them anyway through its government. All Trump is doing is reifying what has been a fact for so long, and why the West and global North is going down the toilet big time.
The U.S. has always been a bully, but now at least under Trump, it has no pretence about being ‘the shining city on the hill’. We all know where we stand and its at the back.
And too many people back here in the UK approve of that. So just remember why this has come about: it’s because the pretense that is our democracy has failed. The back door collusion with capital ensuring that those who will be first are first at the loss to everyone else. And now it’s time to collect the bill. And some one or some groups are going to have to pay. Pray that you are not in one of them. And it won’t be the rich.
‘Democracy’. Yeah, right.
In a normal world, the MSM would be asking whether Trump is suffering from dementia. The bizarre UN, the total reversal on Ukraine and so on – questions really should be asked.
+ Nigel Farage wants children to suffer.
+ He wants millions of people to suffer.
+ He wants to punish people for being poor.
+ Farage is a PLC.
etc.
A list of 10 of Farage’s motivations and their consequences would be a cool format for a fact sheet.
We might not have the counter propaganda budget of Reform but we can try. Words and visual design
when used well can have impact.
Take this website for example. It stands out because it has accessibility tools. You don’t often see that consideration appear on many websites. Also good is the transcripts from the videos.
I studied Human Computer Interaction back in the day and this website ticks all the boxes re layout and clean visual appeal.
Keep up the sterling work Richard.
I like it. I might blog on it…
Suggestions are welcome
You only have to look at the US and see how Trumps policies have impacted the people who voted for him.
They never realised!
Reform have massive support.
People face major problems now and are looking for change.
There is currently almost zero chance of Labour offering that change.
People are remarkably ill informed about Reform. They believe their lies which Starmer’s right wing pitch actually amplifies.
The logic? Reform blame immigration for our woes. Starmer backs him up with racist rhetoric and speeches about deportation. Conclusion? Reform must be right and will do the job better than Starmer.
Similarly on benefits. Reform say they will cut benefits. Does Starmer disagree? No, he keeps the 2 child cap and constantly argues for cuts. Conclusion – Reform must be right and will do a better job at cutting benefits than Starmer. AND he will cut income tax by raising the threshold to £20,000.
Of course this is all completely ridiculous and will be disastrous but it is very compelling. Look at the polls. People believe this rubbish. And only a full frontal assault on Reform and Fa***e from all of us can stop it.
But are the MSM or even Labour DOING that? No.
So, bring it on RJM, let’s destroy that dangerous fascist threat. He’s a dangerous lying cruel incompetent and his traiterous policies will kill people, cause violence and put the future of our country at risk.
Thanks
I will keep thinking about this
I hesitate to disagree with Richard and Robertj, both of whose views I respect. But I think Farage/Reform have peaked too soon. We have more than 3 years before the next election, which will be full of unexpected crises and events, various. Meanwhile Reform councils are making a pig’s ear of their tasks. I am optimistic that some of these will lead to falling support for Reform, even without govt action. And if Starmer and Reeves were replaced by people with more flexible thinking . . . Let’s just laugh at Reform’s unworkable ideas, and contemplate how it would all fall apart if Farage became seriously ill, or even dead.
I am hoping you are right! I think there is a chance you might be. I remember the SDP doing this in about 1982.
Linda – I too, am hopeful that Reform have made a tactical mistake by winning control of 12 important big councils. I also like you, believe Fa***e will face unwelcome scrutiny over the next 4 years, as well as having personality clashes with strong characters in his parliamentary and leadership team (eg: Dan Kruger). I very much hope he and his party will crash and burn.
But we cannot afford to be complacent. The lesson from the USA is that complacency loses elections. I believe Reform have to be attacked NOW from every angle, and we don’t have to tell a single lie to do it well. But the attack has to be multilayered –
Populist, appealing to self interest (like this post on benefits). Values-based using Richard’s “politics of care”.
Economic – showing how they will wreck the economy, the NHS, and industry/commerce.
Religious, exposing the hypocritical way they are weaponising what they wrongly call Christianity, and their divisive dangerous hate-based Islamophobia.
Social cohesion, exposing their divisive, violent racism.
Personal, exposing how the REAL Farage contradicts his hypocritical flat hatted beer-swilling waxed-jacketed public persona, and revealing the weaknesses and incompetence of his small inexperienced team.
Oh, and having some alternative ideas of our own and people to promote and implement them would be good. At the moment we have the ideas but no political vehicle to implement them.
Trump got back into the White House in 2024 despite being a lying, senile, convicted fraudster, & sexually offending incompetent because the Democrats were useless in every way possible.
Farage CAN make it to Downing Street in 2029, because the Tories and Labour are useless, but people of goodwill CAN stop him getting there.
“What did BENEFITS ever do for me?” (my message to Reform voters)
My mum drew child benefit for me right through my childhood. What about you?
As parents, we also received it for our own children.
When I was retraining in middle age, our family received Family Credit to supplement a very low part-time income. We also got free prescriptions & dentistry, and help towards travel for hospital appointments as my son needed a lot of those and the hospitals weren’t local.
During most of this time my wife was seriously and chronically ill and sometimes hospitalised.
During 7 months of unemployment I received contribution related Job Seekers Allowance followed by 1 months Income Related JSA, along with the benefits it triggered.
Without these benefits, I would have lost my home, I would not have been able to retrain, I and my family would have ended up on the streets.
With the benefits, we were able to get by, rear our children and once again get into employment, pay taxes and contribute to our communities. We are now pensioners.
The private undemocratic company pretending to be a political party, that calls itself Reform UK Ltd, would have destroyed me and my family if its policies had been in operation then.
Why on earth would I want to vote for an uncaring set of incompetent vindictive lying overseas financed incorporated Reform fascists, hellbent on destroying my family and my country?
Anyone else want to share their benefit story?
Thank you
It’s a good opening line for a video
Yes, my parents had family allowance for me and I had child benefit for my children. I also benefitted massively from something which was then not labelled as a benefit- a student grant- which allowed me to go to university for three years and kept me while I did so. I then trained as a teacher with a full grant and had a rewarding and I hope socially useful career. I hope I managed to pay back some of the support I was given by contributing to the development of the next generation. Lots of people benefit when the state spends money, not just the immediate recipients.
Thanks
I think that many of those who are saying they will vote for Reform are mainly doing so because they have had enough of the Tories and Labour. They are seen as two peas from the same pod.
It’s the same old, same old, that nothing much changes whichever is in power.
That is true.
But, I’m sure that people do not fully understand what Reform are.
Polls regularly tell us that the vast majority of people want better public services that are well funded and work. They want the services that have been privatised to be re-nationalised. They want climate change to be taken seriously. And they want issues around the cost of living to be addressed. In other words, they want the state to play a major role in our lives, to make things better and provide some security in life. Most people are not anti-state, they just want a better state!
Reform would make all of the above worse. They are economic and financial libertarians. They are anti-state, except the authoritarian part of it. What Liz Truss tried to do, was nothing compared to what Farage and Reform will do. The blueprint is clearly Trump. Insecurity and a worse life for most will follow. On climate change, I would not only call them deniers, but proponants of genocide for future generations.
Reform are Neoliberalism taken to its inevitable, dystopian end game. And that is for everyone, unless you have wealth. A disaster waiting to happen.
Someone needs to take Reform on about what they really stand for.
That is the aim of what I am doing.
I suspect it will improve with time.
As usual, your words express clearly what so many are thinking. Your message gets out to your followers, but we need to amplify it as many times as we can. The MSM focusses on Farage, with daily pictures of flimsy boats crammed full of immigrants. The knee jerk reaction is not “How horrendous, those poor people”, it’s “There’s another load of rapists taking money and jobs off our over benevolent system”. The figures on Reform in Scotland really bother me. I live in Dumfries & Galloway, a pretty strong Tory bastion which, in my opinion, is ripe for Reform. The Greens here suffer from their focus on Gender identity and the Lib Dems don’t seem able to replicate their success in England. I keep being told that nobody reads papers or watches mainstream TV but that’s where the message is being pushed the hardest and the people who follow Reform still use it. I despair but I am constantly reinvigorated by your articles and the responses of your correspondents. Thank you and please keep up the good work.
I try.
And I know your area – and agree if Reform were to get a footghold around you is a place where that is possble
Simon Wren-Lewis has written a good piece today with regard to Reform and MSM (particularly BBC) bias.
Reminds me of the old joke –
“An old woman once told me that she thought we should get back to proper Victorian Values in this country. So I took her pension book off her and shoved her grandson up a chimney”
Turkeys voting for Christmas indeed.
The next development is Advance. This has not been registered as a political party yet, but is Yaxley-Lennon’s project, and potentially Lowe, Jenrick and others. It has huge amounts of backing already – the flag planters are paid for each flag planted in Brownhills (to the north of Birmingham), and there are a lot – the money comes from Advance. Driscoll and friends have stopped Advance having a conference in Newcastle for the moment, but I’m sure this will take the most rabid racists away from Farage. The next year or so will determine the likely trajectory, and will depend on Labour to a large extent – will they sack the BBC apologists, will they take Reform on across the board, will their moral-free easing of corporations into the UK infrastructure blow up in their faces, will they defenestrate Starmer & Co? Farage could easily be a minor footnote in history by 2029. Of course we could have our Horst Wessel moment too……..
I thought of another line of attack to undermine Farage’s support. If he wins the next General Election, which is to be hoped against, but not at all unlikely now, it is likely that he will attempt to introduce fascism. With luck, the very low quality of RefUK leadership would lead to a collapse before much damage were done, but suppose he survived long enough to make progress: quite an early page in the playbook is to create some form of political police, and come for, firstly, scapegoats, and, next, progressives and other dissidents. So, between those who pre-emptively flee, and those who stay to get purged, there will be a lot of suddenly vacant homes hitting the market. I don’t know how many it takes to crash the property market, but someone might be able to put a credible figure to it. Now the demographic of the pro-Reform press’s readership is not a lot different to the one that rejoices in inflated property prices. I think pointing out Reform UK would cost homeowners hundreds of thousands of pounds in asset value would hit a lot of people who are callous to the harm RefUK would do to others in a more sensitive place.
I am more worried about those who will disappear
This is an idea for a different argument to use on those who don’t care. Point out that they, too, will lose in the consequences
Farage’s (and by association Reform politicians and supporters) press conference and its content – ending the right to indefinite leave – is nothing less than a cruel and wicked policy announcement that will have caused severe immediate distress to thousands of families of legal migrants who now face four years of uncertainty as to their long term futures in this country. The fear and uncertainty is happening now. If the mainstream media and the political class do not challenge Farage now then they are complicit in this cruelty. This cannot wait until the 2029 general election campaign gets underway. How low will my country stoop? Moreover, having your legal status undermined by Farage in this way means that none of us can take our rights for granted or believe anything that a politician says if they can just backtrack when it suits them. Farage must have known that there is a legal presumption that legislation cannot be retrospective unless Parliament specifically permits it in any given legislative circumstance. Surely the time has now come for the political class (and media) to step up to the plate and challenge this awful man and his wretched party? If they do not, then they will be just as complicit. Mind you, watching the pathetic response of Labour to the Gaza genocide, I have little confidence that they will do anything meaningful. The argument used by Lammy and Starmer (both lawyers) that it is for a court to decide whether the Israeli government is committing genocide is as laughable as it is disingenuous. As a former DPP Starmer will know that the prosecution makes the argument that a given set of facts and intentions demonstrates that a prima facie case that a crime has been committed has been established and it is then for the jury then to determine whether, in law, the case has been made out. Why is it so hard for Starmer to not say that the facts show that there is a case of genocide for the Israelis to answer? This is why I cannot trust Starmer and the McSweeney project.
Thank you
And a great deal to agree with
I don’t think many truly understand the costs with paying insurance in the UK. I can give you many stories of the money I’ve spent over the years on medical costs before moving here.
Coincidentally posted this today about the cost of basic insurance before seeing this post.
https://bsky.app/profile/martyphee.bsky.social/post/3lzkwdiayxc2f
I don’t think people do
So, thank you
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