In the week prior to Rachel Reeves’s second budget, Nigel Farage and his policy chief Zia Yusuf called a press conference to present Reform UK’s alternative budget. They explain how they would make £25 billion in savings to avoid the need for tax rises. Below is a full transcript of the conference.
Preamble
[Farage] Thank you and good morning everybody. Well, economically and pretty much in every other way we are living in broken Britain and increasingly people know it. But just have a little think about the economics of the situation. Taxes up to a postwar high. Debt exploding, debt repayments becoming unsustainable. The explosion in sheer numbers of those living on a variety and range of benefits, totally uncontrolled mass migration, and certainly not selective migration, and people leaving the country, not just the London, but wealthy big taxpayers, young entrepreneurs leaving the country. It’s a pretty grim situation. And that was all under the Conservative Party. But now we have a Labour government and we have eight very long days to go until the budget. I say long days because it just seem to go on forever and ever and we get a brief or a leak of one kind and then it’s denied. And frankly, no one quite knows exactly what details will be in the budget. But there are a couple of things that we can predict, I think, with a very high degree of accuracy.
The first is this budget, like the last one, will be an attack on aspiration, an attack on alarm clock Britain, an attack on those who get up in the morning. This budget will do nothing for the 5.6 million very brave men and women who act as soul traders or run their own businesses without which the British economy frankly would grind to a halt. And I think we can say with some confidence that this budget will be very very good for those who don’t want to work and want to live on benefits, which is very different to a civilized society looking after those that are unable to look after themselves. And it’ll be an attack on jobs. I have to say I thought the budget last year, you know, you can increase the minimum wage for young people, but if at the same time you bring down to £5,000 the level at which an employer starts to pay national insurance, is it any wonder that there are 50,000 fewer under 18s in employment today than there were this time last year, which culturally I think is an absolute disaster.
What is clear is that the markets are increasingly nervous. I know that Andy Burnham thinks that doesn’t matter, but actually the bond markets in the end are enormously powerful as Liz Truss’s government found to their cost. And amidst all of this, we have a chancellor who is absolutely hopelessly out of a depth. Out of a depth to a level that frankly it’s embarrassing. It was Lee Anderson that called her Rachel from Accounts during PMQ’s some time ago and that really stuck. Although Lee now says he feels sorry for her on a human level. Uh and actually I think we can all understand that. So what we’re going to get is a budget that’ll be drafted by left-wing think tanks. A budget that’ll be drafted by people who’ve never run a business, who’ve never had a proper job in their lives. And that’s the level of disconnect that exists. Now, I do think we’re setting the pace on a number of things. I thought despite her protestations, I thought a lot of what Shabana Mahmood said yesterday that she was driven directly by fear that Labour are losing votes, particularly in the Red Wall, to Reform. And rhetorically, we would agree with a lot of what the home secretary said. Indeed, there are some of us that thought it might just be a pitch. Maybe that’s our next defector. I’m not sure. If her backbenches vote against her, that could become a bigger likelihood.
There was no doubt, as I say, that we led the agenda on that. The illegal migration is making the country very, very angry. And she said it’s, you know, tearing the country apart. But economically it is legal migration that is doing enormous damage to the British economy. And it’s been so difficult to even talk about this this this subject without being screamed down. But just look at the direct link between falls in productivity and the mass importation of unskilled labour. In fact, that trend has been there now for the best part of 20 years. There are enormous costs to our benefit system of those not just illegally but legally have come to our country and today Zia is going to address some of that as indeed we’ve touched on before. uh the idea uh that will that will get put at an alternative press conference today which I understand is going on at the same time as this one is that somehow Reform support a ballooning benefits bill and yet we’re the ones proposing the most radical cuts to benefits in numerical terms that have ever been seen in the history of this country. So I’m going to ask Zia to lay out our key five points today. We’ll then of course take questions on that and anything else as we always do. But I want you to bear in mind with all the numbers that Zia is about to give you. These are before the Boris wave. Before the Boris wave begin to become eligible. And for everything the home secretary has said about extending the number of years you have to be in Britain to qualify whether it’s for ILR whether it’s for benefits I don’t see any changes happening to the Boris Wave and those numbers will start to hit by the end of this year predicted by some think tanks to perhaps be one of the single biggest economic mistakes this country has ever made in its history. I’ll now hand over for some of the details, although you might have heard them already on broadcast media this morning. I’ll hand over to our head of policy, Zia Yusuf.
[Zia Yusuf] Good morning everyone. Thank you for coming and for watching if you’re watching this on a livestream. So tough decisions need to be made is the refrain of the political class for years, decades now. British citizens constantly being told that they need to tighten their belts and they’ve got to accept paying ever more tax for ever worse public services. While that’s been happening, as we’re about to lay out, there has been the most extraordinary ballooning of British taxpayer expense being funneled to foreign nationals, including on our own shores, that you could possibly believe. The British state exists to serve British citizens. That is quite a radical idea these days in Westminster, which is why Nigel gets heckled whenever he says such a thing inside the House of Commons, but that is what it is for. And so, yes, we agree the country is in an enormous amount of debt, closing on three trillion pounds thanks to the Tories, almost tripled it on their watch. We basically have no economic growth to speak of whatsoever. Real wages have barely done anything for people in this country for the last two decades. And we’ve seen the tax burden on people in this country taxed as a percentage of GDP at World War II highs. Again, as Nigel said, we can thank the Tory party for all of that. The question is, who is going to bear the brunt of these quote tough decisions? And here’s our perspective. It is foreign nationals who should first bear the brunt before we ask anyone, any British citizens um to make sacrifices. And that is the fundamental fault line right now in British politics. Our we are working incredibly hard to make Nigel Farage our next prime minister. And the reason for that is he will make every decision as prime minister as will his cabinet and his MPs through the lens of what is in the interests of British people.
£25 billion of savings to avoid tax rises
So, we have put together a suite of proposals that Rachel Reeves could enact immediately in the budget she’s about to announce that would amount to saving and raising £25 billion pounds, more than enough to plug the black hole that she has created through her mad policies and negate the need for tax rises. And in most of the proposals we’re announcing, the vast majority of them, it is foreign nationals who are being asked to deal with the difficult decisions and not British citizens. So, let’s run through them. The first one is welfare. Now, we’ve already announced that our belief is UK welfare should be for UK citizens. I think that’s an entirely reasonable position. And yet the fastest growing line item in any welfare bill you look at where we actually have data is indeed foreign nationals. And data is a key point. One of the reasons why the establishment is so worried about Nigel becoming prime minister is because we will no longer hide the data on all of the line items of the welfare budget and usage of the NHS by foreign nationals.
No welfare for foreign nationals
The government, the Tory government and Labour now continue to hide most of the line items in terms of how much demand there is on those services and welfare programs from foreign nationals. The exception is universal credit and yeah, Universal Credit has been ballooning in terms of foreign nationals utilizing it. So, we are saying we will no longer the British state should no longer pay universal credit payments to foreign nationals. The bill for that will be in terms of how much that would um foreign nationals are taking from Universal Credit is £8 billion pounds this year. We have assumed a three-month notice period to be reasonable and therefore if Reeves were to enact that policy that would be £6 billion pounds of savings this year.
Slashing Foreign Aid
The next one is foreign aid. It is unconscionable that British citizens and taxpayers should be asked to fund foreign aid programs when, for example, 15y olds in Wales have a lower educational attainment than 15-year olds in Turkey. And by the way, that number for Welsh 15-year-olds is below the OECD average. But I say Turkey for a reason. Because the British taxpayer has been forced because of the inept political leadership in this country to send hundreds of millions of pounds in aid to Turkey, a country that whose 15-year-olds do better than Welsh 15-year-olds. Charity begins at home. And that’s before we even start talking about the fact that, for example, while Labour was resisting calls for a statutory national inquiry into the grooming gangs, they were wiring £19 million pounds to Pakistan for child exploitation prevention programs. That is going to make British people’s blood boil. It is unacceptable for us to continue to be funding foreign aid at this level while the country is in the state that it is currently in. Of course, we would aspire in the long run to do foreign aid. Why wouldn’t we? The charity begins at home, and it is unacceptable to ask hardworking British people to pay ever more tax to fund these programs. So, we are proposing a hard cap of a billion pounds on foreign aid. That would still allow us to ring fence our commitments to Ukraine and it would allow us to keep our seats at multilaterals like the UN and the IMF. That would still save £10 billion pounds a year.
Immigration health surcharge
The next thing we can talk about is the immigration health search charge. Now, this is actually quite extraordinary because the government’s own impact assessment when it was recently increased to £1,000 roughly a year, stated very clearly that that £1,000 merely represented 38% of the actual per capita, i.e. per person per year cost of using the NHS. That’s literally in the document. That’s not speculation. It’s in the impact assessment. And yet the Tory government signed off on an effective 62% discount for foreign nationals to be able to use our NHS. And I’ll give you just one example. And this is a very long document. It’s online. You can go and read it. It’s abundantly clear the government has actually got no idea how much the true cost of foreign nationals using our NHS actually is. But I’ll give you just one data point to demonstrate why any sort of discount is totally morally reprehensible and economically illiterate. Let’s look at maternity rates. The birth rate for foreign nationals relative to British citizens is about 30% higher. Each birth cost the NHS £5,000. That is one reason why, by the way, maternity wards, just like GP surgeries and many other parts of the NHS are totally backed up.
I want to give you another data point on the NHS because we’ve already started doing quite a lot of work on what’s gone wrong. And the fact of the matter is this, the population explosion has brought the NHS to its knees. Since 2010, the population in this country has grown by about 10%. Roughly, and almost all of that, north of 90% of that is through immigration. And what’s happened to real I adjusted for inflation, NHS spending, it’s almost doubled. It’s almost doubled to deal with a 10% increase in the population. and insanely and again we can thank the Tory government for this the country has fewer NHS bets since uh since 2010. So it is clear that the marginal cost to serve in pretty much every vector in the NHS scales in really nonlinear fashion in exponential fashion once capacity constraints are exceeded and that is exactly where we are. Unless we get this population uh explosion under control, and Nigel has talked about this for decades, the NHS will not be able to recover, and that is really important. We can make a start. We can make a start by no longer offering foreign nationals a 62% discount on being able to use our NHS. We can then talk about um foreign prisoners.
Foreign Prisoners
So, we’ve known for some time now that north of 10,000 foreign nationals languish in our prisons. And you remarkably countries like Pakistan to whom this country sends hundreds of millions of pounds in aid every year are inept politicians for whatever reason are unable to even get Pakistan to take back their convicted criminals whoare sitting in our jails and we’re still sending them hundreds of millions of pounds in foreign aid and issuing them visas in all sorts of different ways. And then so that would save half a billion pounds adjusted for deportation costs. That’s based on onward data that was published uh this week.
Personal Independence Payments
And then you have uh the PIP announcements, the PIP reforms that Lee Anderson and I uh announced recently. Now, by the way, most of these numbers Nigel mentioned ILR, the numbers I’m giving you, you know, the six billion in the form of uh savings this year if we were to halt welfare pay uh Universal Credit payments alone to foreign nationals, the £10 billion saving in foreign aid, the £5 billion, by the way, that the immigration surcharge increase uh would raise uh this year. All of these numbers compound at dramatic rates over the coming years. Those numbers I’ve given you are just for this fiscal year because we’re talking about plugging the black hole and negating the need for tax rises. But to give you an idea on this, you know, in that press conference, we said by 2029, the PIP reforms that Lee and I proposed would save £9 billion pounds per year in 2029. namely no longer paying for non-serious anxiety but actually putting those people on back to work programs which all of the academic research in Europe shows that that is the best possible thing you could actually do for the recipients of that welfare too many of whom are very young and being tossed on the scrap heap but this year that would still save three half billion so you top all of those numbers up you get to above £25 billion pounds and these are savings that Rachel Reeves could choose to make in her budget that is coming up. We urge her to make these changes and the fact that despite us doing this press conference and our pleas, the likelihood she will choose not to do those things and instead choose to raise taxes on British people is because Labour is making the conscious and deliberate decision to continue funding extortionate amounts to foreign nationals to the detriment of British citizens. And I don’t know what to call that. Frankly, in my view, it’s treachery. I think it’s appalling. British people are sick and tired of it. So, those are our proposals. Let’s and we’re we’re pleading with Rachel Reeves. Let’s enact these. Let’s raise and save 25 billion pounds. Plug the black hole that you’ve created and put British people first. Thank you very much.
[Farage] Zia, thank you. And that is the central message of today’s press conference that putting up taxes in this budget is a choice. It’s a choice. The chancellor is going to choose to make in whatever form in the end they manifest themselves. What we do know is that an increasing tax burden is demotivating, is sending more and more people abroad. I really worry particularly about the number of sort of 30some entrepreneurs, people like him, um who are leaving the country because they just really fear and worry about the direction that we’re going in. And once again, I want to reiterate, you know, we as a party are proposing massive cuts in spending and particularly massive cuts in welfare spending and we’re the first people really to have the courage in modern times to lay any of this out.
Question and Answer Session
Now, as ever, we will take our questions, beginning with our favourite broadcaster, the BBC and Alex Forsyth. Thank you.
[Alex Forsyth] Thank you very much. Um, you are talking again today about some pretty big numbers, £25 billion. Can I just press you on the workability of some of what you’ve announced. You said you would stop foreign nationals claiming Universal Credit, including those with EU settled status. That’s protected by the withdrawal agreement. What gives you any sense that the EU would renegotiate that agreement? And if you say you’d act unilaterally, have you done any analysis of the potential costs when it comes to possible retaliation by the EU, including on trade?
[Farage] Well, just I mean firstly on the point on numbers, you know, the last accurate figures we have are 2015 at which point there were four times the number of EU nationals in the UK getting
benefits as there were UK citizens in Europe receiving any kind of benefits.
But the numbers since then have exploded.
[Yusuf] Yep. And so since then the number of EU nationals in the UK claiming uh welfare has increased sevenfold. Sevenfold. So the facts on the ground have changed. And therefore look we have a choice here. Either you have a government which we’ve had now for years that throws their hands up in the air and say numbers like for example foreign nationals claiming universal credit.
That was 950,000 about three and a half years ago. Three and a half years ago. That number is now 1.3 million. That’s 350,000 more foreign nationals claiming universal credit in this country. That’s happened in three and a half years. So you tell me this. Are we supposed to just stand by and allow that get to 2 million, 2.5 million, 3 million? Are we actually going to say sorry, we actually need to renegotiate this because this is patently unfair?
[Farage] Well, I think the whole relationship with the European Union needs renegotiating. It appears that the Starmer approach is surrender, surrender, surrender. Started with our fisheries uh starting to make contributions again. I mean, the whole thing is mad. It is most certainly not what people voted for. Uh and they were very very clear. You know, Labour in the general election were very very clear there’d be no uh back turns at all on our relationship with the EU and there’ve been several already. But look, you know, the relationship clearly on this and given the explosion of numbers, the relationship is hopelessly out of kilter. We’d like to negotiate something with the EU to show we’re good neighbours on reciprocal and fair basis. Jack Carson next up from GB News.
[Jack Carson] Um, what impact do you expect the increase in the NHS search charge to have on waiting times and is that money that is that ever going to be reinvested into public services or is that only ever going to be a saving for the public purse? And just on uh the home secretary’s announcements yesterday, do you think that they will stop the boats?
[Farage] Uh, look, I thought that what um the Home Secretary said yesterday um in in rhetorical terms was extremely encouraging. Extremely encouraging. It’s just that in realistic terms, I’m not quite sure that it will survive her own backbenches and a vote in parliament. And I can’t see that any of it actually works. I mean, you you can tell the judges, please interpret uh the ECR and the Human Rights Act differently, but in practice, you can’t actually make them do that. given the current group that we’ve got.
So, frankly, I don’t actually think that most of what she said will make any difference at all. And as for the gimmick, you know, we’re going to take away people’s watches and earrings. And I mean, this is just never going to happen. And and even in Denmark, which of course is what they were citing, even in Denmark, I think only 17 people have had valuables removed from them. Uh and by the way, Denmark too now beginning to struggle with its own policies directly as a result of the European Court of Human Rights. So look, rhetorically fine, following very many of the things that we’ve been saying for some years, but in practice, I doubt much of it will actually happen.
[Yusuf] Yeah. And on your question regarding the NHS, look, we we’ve made this press conference and our proposals are to plug the current fiscal black hole that Rachel Reeves has created so that it is not necessary refer to raise taxes on British people. Um, you know, with regards specifically to the NHS search chart, you actually read that impact assessment, the changes we’re proposing would not have a that meaningful delta on demand. Even if it did, frankly, there’s far too much immigration in this country.
[Farage] Yeah. Thank you. Jasmine Cameron Chileshe, ITV News.
[Chileshe] Uh, thank you, Jasmine Cameron Chileshe, ITV News. Um, you say these cuts will raise around 25 billion pounds. Is it your expectation that if they go ahead, a reformed government wouldn’t have to increase taxes such as uh national insurance or income tax? Uh, and just secondly, if I may, the home secretary has urged you, Mr. Farage to quote sod off after we suggested she was auditioning to join reform. Uh what’s your response? And just to confirm, would reform MPs vote with the government on their asylum changes if needed? Yeah, I did notice actually Robert Peston arriving in the room uh just as we started. Um well, she seems to quite like using bad language, doesn’t she, the home secretary. There’s been quite a bit of it over the course of the last 48 hours or so. Um, I mean, look, for her to say she’s not in the least bit interested in what reform has to say is clearly utter rot. They’re obsessed with what Reform has to say. Just look at every prime minister’s questions on a Wednesday and look at the prime minister or every other front bencher that gets up in any single debate and if Reform
didn’t exist, would she have made those announcements yesterday? No, she would not have done in terms of the vote. I’ll pass to Zia. In terms of how would we vote? Well, in terms of the rhetoric, we support it, but in terms of the reality, why would we vote for something if we’re convinced that it can’t actually work? I also wonder when will this actually come before Parliament in the form of primary legislation? Or is this just another as we saw with Richie’s Stop the Boats? Is it just another of one of these big performative exercises to say to the red wall audience, look, we’re really with you. You don’t need to go away and and flirt with those ghastly um Reform types. Uh you know, when is this actually going to come before parliament? Because there are many other things this government have promised that haven’t yet made their way through primary legislation.
[Yusuf] Yeah. Yeah. And listen, I I would just comment my my personal perspective on this um is that it was Kier Starmer who accused Nigel of uh being racist if you remember and I put it to you that if Nigel Farage had sat at a press conference and announced that a reformed government would start taking jewellery away from people coming across on small boats, Lord only knows uh what would have happened. And I I take great exception to that actually. Um I do take great exception to um to that. And I don’t also one of the points about that particular policy is my view is clearly entirely performative. I don’t know who they think is coming across by small boat. It’s not 50 Cent and Lil Wayne. And so therefore taking their gold chains away is not going to raise anything like enough money to make any dent on uh the asylum budget. But look, the savings that we have outlined here, as I said, we put them together carefully because they are things that Rachel Reeves can actually enact. Case in point being, for example, we put in a three-month notice period on the ending of uh universal uh credit payments. These are things, these are not fantasy. These are real things Rachel Reeves could choose to do. And as Nigel said, these are choices Labor is making.
[Farage] Yes. And it’s before it’s before. Just look at the graph. Look at the trend. Look at those that will get benefit rights over the course of the next three years and understand that the numbers we’ve talked about today will be significantly bigger by the end of this parliament which won’t be in 2029 I’m pretty confident about that. Um moving on to Tamara Cohen Sky News
[Tamara Cohen] Thank you Tamara Cohen Sky News. You’re talking about finding these massive savings, Reform are in power in various councils you promised massive savings then they’ve struggled to find those savings and many of them are looking at raising council tax. Why should voters feel reassured it’d be any different if you were in power nationally?
[Farage] I did not make a single promise, not a single promise in that election campaign that we’d be able to freeze or cut council tax. I never said it once. And you know why? Because I realized the massive debts that we were inheriting from those county councils. It’s such a shame if you guys had focused on local government before the May the 1st elections, maybe the levels of debt would not have got as bad as they have. Now, of course, there’s a huge focus on county councils up and down the country. Richard Ty laid out very clearly yesterday in a press conference the 330 million pounds of savings we’ve already made but he also made the bigger broader point which links actually directly into what we’re talking about today that there is a massive problem with the send budget a massive massive problem with the SEND budget and this is going to need national government to work with local government to reduce those burdens and it’s a case of overdiagnosis. It’s a case of misallocated budgets. It’s a case of some of the most extraordinary expenditure. I mean, I, you know, wouldn’t mind owning a taxi firm in Lincolnshire. It sounds like very good business. Um, so there are a lot of, you know, a lot of the impact on those local councils does come from national government policy. Um, are we determined to make changes? Yes. Uh, will we cut debt? Yes. But can we give people a free ticket at this moment in time on council tax? No. And I never ever thought we would be able to at this stage. But I think the analogy that was given yesterday, if I listened carefully enough, was that we’re 12 minutes into a 90-minute game. Did I get that right? Well, there you are. Marvelous. Let us move on to Martin Beckford from the Daily Mail.
[Martin Beckford] Thank you. Uh, just following on from Tamara’s question. So will you be content if Reform-led councils increase council tax by the maximum allowed 5% next year or would you tell them they can’t do that?
[Farage] Thank you. Well, we can’t tell them what to do. It’s not you know I mean you know they are their own living breathing organisms. I would very very much hope that any council tax rises would be limited to inflation. That is very much my aim and aspiration for our councils. But I repeat the point. If you actually look at the numbers, we have inherited massive, massive debts. Massive debts. It isn’t just at a national level that the country’s in trouble. It’s in big trouble at a local government level, too. Uh, but I would just want to say one more thing if I can on this, and it is that last year, seven county councils had their elections cancelled in the name of local government reorganization. This year uh we understand and in fact The Times I think have covered this better than any other newspaper that the leaders of those Tory councils are urging the government to postpone the elections again because they’re worried that Reform might win them and oppose the local government reorganization. Imagine that. Imagine the democratic will of the people being discovered. So we would challenge very strongly the government and say let’s go ahead with the seven council county council elections. And by the way, you know, part of that debate will be how we’ve run the other county councils. Let the public judge. So I would urge that very otherwise you’re going to have elected conservative county councils who will by the time this proposed local government reorganization goes through have actually sat in their positions for seven years and I think democratically that’s unacceptable at any level. Martina Bet from the Sun.
[Martina Bet] Thank you very much. Uh you want to cap foreign aid at £1 billion, but do you think that should come with conditions? For example, making every penny of that conditional on countries taking back illegal migrants, for example, and if they refuse, then they get nothing. And just quickly, on the confiscation scheme of jewellery and other assets, are you saying that you’re against that?
[Farage] It isn’t going to happen in a month of Sundays. I’ll bet you any money you like. We do not take a single possession off anybody. Well, unless it’s a gun off anybody crossing the English Channel by dingy. And as Zia says, you know, if I dared to answer your question in the affirmative, I I can’t even imagine what some of the historic parallels uh that would be drawn and published would be. And that really gets to the heart of yesterday’s event. You know, it was performative to a very very large degree. Even if she believes this stuff herself, and clearly she is very much more from the blue Labour wing of the party, even if she believes it herself, it just isn’t going to happen. Camila Tomeny from the Telegraph. Sorry. Oh, yeah.
[Zia] I’m happy to take that one. So, uh, so we wouldn’t even categorize. So, so listen, um, we we want to hard cap foreign aid at a billion pounds for the foreseeable, right? until the Britain until Britain’s finances are in a position where hardworking brick layers in this country are not being asked to pay ever more tax. Um, in terms of making it conditional, well, what we would say, as we outlined in Operation Restoring Justice, our deportation plan, we uh we allocated 2 billion pounds specifically for paying foreign nations to take back their illegal migrants. So, we wouldn’t even call that foreign aid. That’s very simple. You know, here’s an incentive to take back your illegal migrants in our country so that we can basically ensure that we have proper immigration law here. Yep. Camila Tomeny Telegraph. Morning. Thank you.
[Camila Tomeny] Camila Tomeny for the Daily Telegraph. Just a personnel question. Mindful of the fact that you think there’s going to be a general election in 2027 and you’ve been very critical of the current chancellor. You’ve scrapped the tax cuts that Richard Tice wrote into the Contract with the People at the last general election. If Zia Yousef is now crunching the numbers for the announcements you’re making today, should we presume that he’s your preferred choice for chancellor over Richard Tice now?
[Farage] Thank you. Lovely try, but you should pres No, it’s very good. I mean, no wonder you’re so well paid. Um uh but I’m just not playing your silly little game. Sorry. Uh right, moving on to the next question. Max Kendix from The Times who has covered uh the local government cancellations better than any other journalist.
[Max Kendix] Uh thank you. Um a couple of questions. Uh one on which was kind of asked before but would be good to get addressed more fully. Is your aim to go into the next election making a promise not to raise uh any taxes whatsoever? Are there going to be solid commitments uh around that or conversely do you think there’s an area that should be taxed more? Um and and Zia, I wonder, Shabana Mamood said yesterday when she was being accused of being divisive by a LibDem MP that she’s the one regularly called uh an effing ‘p word’ and told to go back home. Is that an experience of racism in public life that you sympathize with?
[Yusuuf] Yeah. Well, look, um I’ve answered this a few times this morning on the morning round. So, number one, um I deeply sympathize with her for being in receipt of uh such uh appalling racism. Uh that must be deeply unpleasant. But and look obviously different politicians have different reasons and motivations uh for saying and believing different things. I do somewhat take exception to this conflation with or this association with concern about immigration legal and illegal and racism. I do take exception to that because for I think decades now and Nigel’s been campaigning on this issue for decades. People in this country have voted time and time and time and time again for less immigration. Not because they’re racist, not because they’re running around shouting the F-word or using the P word at people, but because they they believe Britain should have borders. They believe in sovereignty. They believe in the rule of law, and they believe that if you pay taxes in this country, you should assume to actually get public services that make sense for you. So, I would, it’s a subtle thing. And again, I I have deep sympathy, of course, for anyone who receives that kind of uh racist abuse. Lord knows I’ve received abuse, too, just like every frontline politician. But this notion that one should conflate concern about immigration, which as she did in the chamber yesterday with um such appalling racism, I I do I do have something of an issue with that.
[Farage] Yeah. Melanie Phillips in your newspaper today makes some very similar points actually in a very powerful um article. Look, we’re we’re a party that believes we need tax cuts, that the tax burden is too high. It’s a disincentive. Uh and by the way, I want lots of people moving back to Britain. I want people moving back to Britain who are going to pay lots and lots and lots of tax because if you drive away the wealthiest, you drive away the highest taxpayers, which means a potentially higher tax burden for everything else.
But I think what we’ve shown you, or I believe what we’ve tried to show you over the course of the last few weeks, is that we fully understand that we can’t even talk about tax cuts until we get our spiraling debt problem in this country under control. Equally, there needs to be a big change of culture as well when it comes to work, productivity, success, and maybe we should be championing uh entrepreneurs that do well and make money. rather than portraying them as being evil for having done well. So, there are some big cultural shifts that are needed as well. No, we want tax cuts. The tax burden is too high. We’re committed to doing that. But first, we’re showing you that we can make the cuts and do the things that will give us the room.
[Yusuf] Can I can I just say one other thing on that? And it alludes to an earlier question as well which is that I do think there’s something of an underappreciation in the media about the changing financial situation since the last general election. Um and the country’s finances have deteriorated meaningfully even from the shambolic and deteriorated state they were in as a result of 14 years of Tory government. And if you were to look and we can have this conversation again the day after the budget, but my assessment is any reasonable assessment um assuming that Rachel Reeves does not do the things we’re proposing here today sadly is that after the budget just to unwind that incremental new taxes that Rachel Reeves has imposed on the British people, the mad inheritance tax changes including on farmers, the 2% increase in national insurance uh contributions for employers, the sugar tax, what all of these things she’s talking about will be north of £60 billion pounds. And Lord knows we would love an early general election, but by the time we get to the next general election, in all likelihood, my view is that we’re going to be at north of a hundred billion pounds just to unwind the appalling tax rises that Rachel Reeves would have implemented. So we’ve got to be straight up with the British people about that.
[Farage] Absolutely. Jonathan Walker from the Express.
[Jonathan Walker] Uh thank you, Nigel. Um I think it was Zia this morning um highlighted a web page that you’ve set up for people who are interested in defecting to uh Reform. I don’t suppose Shabana is really going to fill it in, but are you able to tell us anything about how many people have um applied and how do you decide who to accept and who to uh not accept?
[Farage] In terms of defectors, I mean the rule is very, very simple. Uh we want people to come to us who we think will add add to us, help us as a party, help us as a movement as opposed to simply using us as a tool to revive their political careers. That’s the criteria, plain and simple. Sophie Wingate from PA.
Sophie Wingate Thank you, Sophie Wingate from PA. um on renegotiating with the EU on benefits for EU citizens, can you guarantee that it wouldn’t lead to retaliatory measures and higher prices for British consumers? And have you had any exploratory talks with EU officials um to see how open they might be?
[Farage] No, I’m I’m I’m not um terribly popular in Brussels most of the time. It has to be said. I think they’re quite pleased to see the back of me in many ways, although the European Parliament’s very very dull uh now that the Brexit Party aren’t there. Um, it’s a negotiation, you know, it’s a negotiation and you go into a negotiation uh with with a very clear idea of what your objectives are and what your interests are and your interests ought to be the national interest. And the whole disaster of the EU renegotiation from the very very early days was it was viewed by Theresa May and others as a damage limitation exercise as opposed to a rejuvenating opportunity. And so we finished up with a very bad deal that currently the prime minister is trying to make considerably worse. We will adopt a different approach, and you can never predict how uh negotiations will go. Uh but I do think that we have a team of people who’ve been used to negotiations who know what the tough side of life is when it comes to business when it comes to putting together contracts, putting together deals and I would argue we’ve got a far better chance of doing something in the national interest than any of the careerists that have gone before us. Maritzio Alan Carr, City AM.
Hi, Maritzio Alan Carr. Thank you. Some of the criticism of Labour has been on plans to create a so-called smorgasboard of tax rises based on quite volatile items. But then this package is also talking about some volatile items such as net migration. So you know is this savings package and slight surcharge fees package also not based on very sort of unpredictable forecasts? Thanks.
[Farage] No, just have a look at the graph. I mean you’re City AM for goodness sake. Just have a look at the trend. The trends have now been well established for several years and actually the numbers are getting worse and the predictions for those numbers whether it’s PIP, whether it’s universal credit, all of this will be considerably worse this time next year and even worse the year after that. The trend is very very clear and this is about arresting and turning around that trend.
[Yusuf] Yeah. And I would just add to that the only number that could in any way be described as uh being reliant on a variable uh is the one on IHS that you flagged the inherit uh the immigration health search charge. The 5 billion number we just touted as being the savings is based on the current OBR forecast for net immigration. But I also said in my speech because we’ve done the numbers on this, if they cut net immigration to zero, which is what our policy is, it would still save north of three billion quid. That’s still 23 billion pounds, more than enough to negate tax rises. Emilio Casalichio from Politico.
[Emilio Casalichio] Hi, thank you very much. You say that you made no specific promises about council tax before that those May elections but reform local groups did make very clear promises. So what will you do to keep better control over what these people promise on essentially your behalf in local areas? And are you able to say something just a bit more in general about that experience? What councils, these Reform councils are finding, the challenges that they’re finding in terms of saving money or in terms of making difficult decisions for savings that actually are proving very unpopular or the government won’t let them do. What have you learned from this experience of some form of governance about what you should be promising ahead of the election and how a Reform government might need to kind of temper expectations?
[Farage] I was incredibly careful, incredibly careful in the run-up to those county elections not to make false economic promises. And I promise you, you will not find a leaflet officially sanctioned by the party. You will not find a clip or an excerpt of anything I said on the street or on camera or to you or wherever it may be where I made any false claims about tax and council tax. And I can assure you having traveled and having met I can’t even think but probably 8 to 900 of the 1300 people that stood 600 people that stood for us um I didn’t hear anyone making false promises on council tax. So I think you know the messages that were coming from the central party through through through the senior membership team were very very loud and clear. Um lessons yeah I mean I think you know getting anything to change in this country is difficult. It’s difficult because of inertia. It’s difficult because of the status quo.
It’s difficult because there are plenty of people living in the marzipan layer, you know, on a public sector with the promise of great pensions with maybe not the longest working hours in the world. Many of them thinking since the pandemic that actually work from home was a suitable alternative. Yeah, getting things to change is hard. I think that’s perhaps the biggest thing that I take from these first few months. Um and and that is to a very large extent why it’s getting back to the express question really. That’s very much why Danny Kruger has come into the party to oversee a team to think how are we going to deal with those challenges with Whitehall and elsewhere. But yeah, that’s my big take out. Okay, we’re rattling through. Will Hazel from the i Paper.
[Will Hazel] Thank you. Um, do you support Shabban
Mhamood’s plan to deport the children of failed asylum seekers? Because I think earlier in the year Reform rode back on plans to deport the children of illegal migrants in your mass deportation plan.
[Farage] Look, you know, my job is not to make your life easier. Um, and so I’m going to say this. The absolute priority with deporting those who’ve come illegal are young undocumented males of fighting age, many of whom will do great harm in this country to women, to girls, join crime gangs, and that is the absolute priority. And that remains my answer. Lucy White from Bloomberg.
[Lucy White] Thank you. Um I wanted to ask about steel. Um at the moment the EU has proposed much higher tariffs on steel that we are trying to negotiate our way out of. If you were to torpedo relations with the EU by, for example, withdrawing from the ECR or by um treating their citizens here differently to the way we treat our own, how do you expect that to impact on um these industries that are so reliant on um our relations with the EU? Because the steel industry has said the tariffs at the current level that the EU is proposing would be incredibly damaging.
[Farage] No, and I understand that. But that’s all part of a negotiation, isn’t it? That’s all part of a negotiation. And you know, when you’re negotiating against someone that sees weakness, they will keep hammering you. That is that is the world that we live in. And we’ve shown weakness since 2016. Time after time after time. And frankly, under Kier Starmer’s leadership, it is craven weakness that we’re seeing on fishing and everything else. So yes, these are issues as are trade issues around the whole of the rest of the world, but this is about a complete reset of our relationship and one that is much more in our national interest. And you know, steel is a very difficult subject anyway. I honestly don’t believe that if Richard Tice and I had not gone up to Scunthorpe on that day, I honestly don’t believe this country would be producing any primary steel at all. And and that moves on to a whole bigger debate on energy and the sheer catastrophe that Net Zero that the attempt to become the Saudi Arabia of wind um and onto this government is for not just our traditional manufacturing industries but forget data centres, forget AI, forget crypto, forget the entire 21st century economy. if we continue with our current energy policy, we simply won’t be competitive and won’t be able to do it. And energy will be, you know, very much, I think, a centerpiece um of what we fight the next general election on. George Eaton, New Statesman. [Silence] No, not here. Adam Cherry, Guido Fawkes.
[Adam Cherry] Thank you. Uh the chancellor next week is set to announce a milkshake tax. What is Reform’s position?
[Farage] My favorite subject, right?
[Adam Cherry] What is Reform’s position on sin taxes? You mentioned the sugar tax earlier, would you abolish it? And under a Reform government, if I go into a restaurant, would I be able to buy a Coca-Cola and get it refilled on limited times?
[farage] Oh, I’ve seen that. I mean, you know, it’s as if we we’ all to be protected from ourselves and kept at home wrapped up in cotton. Uh just take tobacco. Just take tobacco. The Australians have gone bonkers. A packet of cigarettes in Australia costs about 35 quid, maybe nearly 40 quid. Uh so if you’re living in Melbourne and you’re in a criminal gang, forget cocaine. Forget there’s no money in cocaine. The money’s in fact. Uh and as a result of this, there have been 40, 40 premises firebombed over the course of the last two and a half years as the tobacco gangs fight against each other and burn out shops that are selling under the counter cigarettes. And you can go back to Adam Smith if you like who talked about brandy taxes. And if brandy tax is too high, guess what happens? You get smuggling. Um, and I think when when I take that down to sugar, well, clearly there is not going to be a black market in milkshakes. I would fully understand that. Um, but they’re hot when they’re chucked in your face, they’re really vile, I must tell you. I just think we’re not doing enough through education and just banning things and taxing things and saying in that particularly famous chain that you can’t fill up for a second time. It’s just it’s just overreach on the simply on the most astonishing level. Archie Earl from Unheard,
[Archie Earl] I was wondering if you could um tell us anything about if Reform has any plans to implement a Trump style visa ban on any countries um especially in the light of Shabbana Mamood’s announcements.
[Farage] Well, the visa ban that that Shabbana Mamood talked about yesterday was actually yes, a very sensible negotiating tactic. Why wouldn’t any government looking after the national interest do that? It was one of the most attractive things. I thought she said let’s show some muscle as a country and we can do that with Nigeria etc. Um even um even maybe I don’t know but but so there’s much we could do. Um, but I just again say to you that it all sounded great. It’s all supposed to neuter support for Reform. I just don’t believe any of it with this government, this cabinet, and these backbenches and the leftward movement that we’re seeing in Labour politics. You know, the drag that is coming now from the Greens, from there won’t be Jeremy Corbyn because he can’t run a bath. But but there is that gradual drift to the left. I just don’t believe it’ll ever happen. Right. Two or three more. Um Anna Gross from the Financial Times.
[Anna Gross] just on the immigration health search charge. In all of the documentation that I’ve read, it’s uh calculated on the average cost to the NHS of migrants who are eligible for the surcharge. So I’m confused about where you got this £2,700 pound figure from which I can’t find. Um also when the government has increased IHS before the number of people whose fees are waved goes up because fewer people can afford it. So wouldn’t that reduce the revenue from this policy and also what are you going to do about the people who say look I literally can’t afford it and then their fees get waved.
[Farage] If I was to go to Australia and work in Australia and I couldn’t prove that I either had the cash in my account or the health insurance for up to four years I wouldn’t be let in.
[Yusuf] Yeah know it’s spot on. Right. So, so the first point to make is that there’s a a very substantial document which is the government’s own. It’s a Home Office impact assessment. All the numbers are in there and it literally states very explicitly that the per capita per year cost of the NHS is north of £2700 and they set the last government set the uh surcharge at 38% of that and you can read the document. It’s a very very long document but it’s abundantly clear that the home office and the government actually has no idea what the actual cost is and the reason why I laid out for example yeah it’s all in there and in the document that we publish but the reality is if you just looked at maternity rates for example contact with the NHS and per capita cost in the NHS in reality yes you have an average yes you have a median but it’s massively driven by significant events one of which for example is a birth and the migrant uh the the foreign national birth rate is 30% higher than it is for British nationals and each one of those births cost £5,500. There’s absolutely no justification for keeping the number at that. Now there are also as you say a number of exemptions inside uh the HIS uh one of which would be for ILR. Now obviously our plan is to abolish ILR altogether but if if Rachel Reed doesn’t want to do that she could just remove uh that exemption. Obviously, asylum seekers, all of these other sorts of peoples don’t have to currently pay. Nor, by the way, I want to be crystal clear, NHS workers are currently exempt. We would retain that uh exemption. So, we’re saying even in a net zero immigration scenario, it would raise £3 billion. Based on current OB forecasts for immigration this year, it would be 5 billion pounds.
[Farage] David Burke from the Mirror.
[David Burke] Hi. Thank you very much. Um in a hypothetical situation where a company were to go bust its big local employer in an area under your proposals the British citizens on the workforce uh would have the safety net of support uh but their colleagues neighbours uh from the EU or from overseas uh in some way wouldn’t they also have their own living costs their own families etc. Do you think that’s fair and do you think the wider public think that’s fair? I just think the model that we’ve been pursuing for basically quarter of a century of importing as much cheap foreign labour as we possibly can um has been a benefit to some employers especially big employers but the net effect on the British economy it’s been catastrophic on productivity and it has as the years have gone by uh just brought upon us a massive range of social costs through dependence etc. We cannot continue with this current model. I understand that for some people there’ll be short-term concerns. Of course there will be. But what we’re saying is we have to turn this around. And frankly, you know, to have so many millions of people of working age not working uh is is the thing that is going to have to be addressed. Thank you. Uh Peter Walker from the Guardian.
[Peter Walker] I’m hidden here so I’m going to stand up. Um, if I can return to the very very first question, this is quite long press conference which you didn’t completely uh answer from the BBC. Has the party modeled at all what the economic consequences of your actions on EU nationals? What would be the case if the EU uh hit back, for example, on trade? Or you just are you convinced that they weren’t? And if I may, um, I asked Richard this yesterday. He basically said he didn’t particularly have any concerns about the views of your new head of the student organization who has argued quite vehemently on X that people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British even if they’re UK born and bred. Do you share Matthew Goodwin’s views? And given the fact he’s in the party, does this indicate that your proud record you’ve talked about a lot of keeping far-right elements out of your parties? Is that era now gone?
[Farage] No. And we will always keep far-right elements out of our party. I’ve always done that. You’ve known me for goodness knows how many years. I’ve always made sure we’ve never had BNP types etc. in. I think what Goodwin said it was nuanced and if you look at the nuance it perhaps doesn’t look as ugly as you try to make out is the point that I would make but of course as soon as you set up a youth wing you’re going to have problems with everybody. Um and we knew that before we did it. I would argue with Europe they’re still selling us lots of cars. You know they’re still selling us lots of cars. We’re still buying 20 million bottles of champagne every year. You know, we need to get back to a basic trade agreement. Uh and and look, you know, have we costed there are all sorts of good and bad scenarios that can happen every single day of the week. I am confident we can come to a much better deal with the European Union. I was going to ask one last question. Robert Peston, do you have a question as you were late in the room?
[Robert Peston] I think I’m interviewing you. I’ll save it.
[Farage] Fine. Very good. Um yes, one more. Sorry, I apologize. Thank you, Robert H. not on my list. I apologize.
[Robert H] No, I’m late. Thank you. Um, you’ve painted a very gloomy picture of the public finances in this press conference, but would it be fair to say that the solutions you’re offering in contrast to your avowedly radical solutions on immigration are perhaps cautious? 25 billion savings is just about half what the Tories suggest they could find, 47 billion. Even your PIP changes are less than what Labour thought they could find when they first thought they could manage this. So is that the message you want to give to the electorate? We’re radical on immigration, but there will be incremental change on the public finances.
[Farage] What we’ve given you today is just one snapshot of one area. Uh we might remind you of what we said about the Boris Wave and indefinite leave to remain and what the cost of those individuals are likely to be over the course of the coming decades. 200 billion. Yeah, I mean it’s hundreds of billions if you actually were to look at uh the Boris Wave and that over decades over decades indeed. Um and look, we’re going to have a lot more to announce in this regard. I will say it’s quite funny though with the media. You know, one minute we’re putting big numbers out there and we’re accused of fantasy economics, and we put smaller numbers out there and that’s a bit cautious. So here’s the point. Here’s the point. As Nigel said, this is a very specific set of proposals for Rachel Reeves that she could enact immediately. And by the way, that 25 billion that compounds as is in the document that we will share with you that compounds significantly and multiplies over the coming years. Thank you everybody.
How many questions? Yeah, a lot.
Farage and Yusuf present Reform UK’s Alternative Budget
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