Can Reform UK face down vested interests and make the tough decisions if it ever forms the next government? Reform’s newfound leadership in local government will offer evidence of whether it can deliver on this. For one, Nigel Farage’s party says it is the party of business and enterprise. But business – big but also small – frequently loves open-door immigration.
Cheap labour means lower costs, while a booming population is often good for landlords and consumer businesses alike. How to square the circle? Well, businesses could still meet their labour needs through time-specific work permits. This could also be more cost-effective in terms of their National Insurance contributions.
Landlords and supermarkets can still get their income but without the attendant costs of mass immigration without integration.
For a start, everyone benefits from more trusted and secure border control, and consequent lower crime. Who wants to stay and invest in a country where crime is the only growth sector?
Furthermore, Reform is pitching itself as the party defending social welfare and government intervention in the economy if and when required.
This is a departure from Thatcherism redux and could contradict the party’s low tax message. None of this comes for free, right?
Yet, Reform can rightfully claim a work permit system would ultimately cut down the country’s welfare bill and consequently lower taxes.
The generation war could be stickier though. Reform pitches itself as the party protecting pensioners while encouraging young people to stay in the UK and have children.
This all costs money, not least lifting the two-child benefit cap.
There is arguably a contradiction between more money for the NHS and state pensions, and helping young people save for a home. One requires more tax, the other less.
Moreover, building more homes could lower the property values of older people who often depend on their homes to release value for later-life care.
In response, Reform could however go hard on welfare savings for migrants, alongside scrapping net zero targets and finding efficiencies elsewhere (note the DOGE rollout). These savings alone however may not suffice.
Instead, a narrative of building homes for young British people to encourage family and wealth creation should be pushed, encouraging the ambitious to stay, build businesses, progress careers and ultimate lift the tide for all boats.
Reform’s patriotic populism needs somehow to balance a low tax, pro-business message with investing in the future, and building a safe country where ultimately businesses want to stay, and the wealthy want to invest.
It starts with work permits, while building a stronger and safer country which the young, wealthy and ambitious don’t want to flee from. After all, there won’t be much cash for the NHS if all the entrepreneurs bugger off.
Labour and the Tories created the worst of all worlds, running up debts for no return on investment. They drove people away and allowed a free-for-all immigration policy.
Reform could change all that, but Farage’s party needs to explain clearly how it will invest for the future, while staying on the side of business, the young and elderly all at once.
It won’t be easy. But the UK is crying out for someone to get a grip, and build a country which everyone can buy into.