{"id":94973,"date":"2026-08-17T07:40:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T06:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=94973"},"modified":"2026-08-17T09:00:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T08:00:42","slug":"who-is-a-foreign-national-the-question-reform-needs-to-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/08\/17\/who-is-a-foreign-national-the-question-reform-needs-to-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is a foreign national? The question Reform needs to answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FT has this headline<\/a> this morning:<\/p>\n

Reform UK has vowed to cut \u00a350bn from the welfare bill by slashing benefits for foreign nationals and people with disabilities if it wins the next general election.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, just what is a foreign national in their minds?<\/p>\n

The question matters. For me, it is even rather personal. I receive a state benefit. It is the state old-age pension. I qualify for the full pension, having paid UK National Insurance for well more than the required number of years.<\/p>\n

I am also a foreign national. I have both UK and Irish passports, but I have lived in the UK all my life, and nothing I can do will remove my entitlement to an Irish passport: that is embedded in Irish law, and Reform cannot change that.<\/p>\n

I am far from alone in being in this situation. I know many who are, and many more who have the passports of other states, or entitlement to them. According to the last census<\/a>, more than 1.2 million do this. I suspect the number has risen significantly since then in the aftermath of Brexit.<\/p>\n

So will Reform deny us all benefits and state pensions? It is a necessary question. I am not sure there is a known answer. I am assuming the worst in that case. These people are possessed of toxic xenophobia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FT has this headline this morning: Reform UK has vowed to cut \u00a350bn from the welfare bill by slashing benefits for foreign nationals and
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,204,35,16,203,147,224,106,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-fascism","category-inequality","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94988,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94973\/revisions\/94988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}