May 28, 2025
Farage's 'policies' don't add up and could risk a return to “Trussonomics”, Rejoin EU Party says
Reform UK's costly spending plans don't add up and have echoes of former PM Liz Truss's chaotic mini-Budget, the Rejoin EU Party says.
Reform leader Nigel Farage yesterday announced a range of 'policy pledges' reportedly including plans to end the two-child benefit cap, reverse cuts to winter fuel payments and increase tax breaks for married couples.
When combined with a separate promise to increase the threshold at which people start paying income tax to £20,000, the policies could cost up to £80bn a year and would need to be funded by big cuts to public services, a report said.
Meanwhile, Farage's plan to raise £45bn a year by scrapping the government’s commitment to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 wouldn't raise the required funds because the figure included private-sector as well as public-sector investment – and ditching privately-funded projects doesn’t save government money, the report said.
Rejoin EU Party deputy leader John Stevens said Farage was simply promoting the interests of oil & gas producers by claiming he could fund the spending plans by abolishing net zero targets.
Secondly, his claim that “not just billionaires but young entrepreneurs and creative people” were leaving Britain contradicted his anti-EU stance because many of those people were going to EU countries, Stevens said.
“These costly plans look like they could be a re-run of Liz Truss's disastrous 2022 mini-Budget,” Stevens said.
“Farage is simply spouting the interests of the fossil-fuel lobby in his extraordinary claim that he will be able to pay for his extremely costly programme, notably raising the threshold for paying income tax to £20,000, by 'abolishing net zero'.
“Furthermore, not only is his Brexit the major factor causing the big post-2016 rise in legal – and illegal – immigration, but the destinations he cited to where these wealthy and talented emigrants were going were Lisbon, Athens, Milan and Dubai. The first three of these are of course in the EU and Dubai is a favourite bolthole of his deputy Richard Tice.”