Reform's Economic Policy is Waiting to Topple

Image - Gage Skidmore

‍

By almost every metric, it is a good time to be Nigel Farage. Labour, less than a year and half into their historic majority government, are embroiled in apolitical quagmire of infighting, U-turns and much-resented ideological quietism. Badenoch’s Conservatives, who monopolized control over Westminster for 14 years, have been reduced to such a shadow of their former selves they are barely even worth mentioning; meanwhile, his Reform Party are the uncontested favourites to win the next General Election.

‍

But, as the 2-party system of old collapses before our eyes, Labour teeters on the precipice of self-annihilation, and Reform continues to make gains in the polls, the added political scrutiny that comes with being the nation’s most talked about political party might expose in Reform a defect that sobers Farage’s premature celebrations- their economic strategy.

‍

The irony is, as Reform continues to label themselves the ‘party of the people’ and the refreshingly radical rupture from corrupt mainstream politics, their economic interests are startlingly orthodox. This, when examined alongside the fact that their voter base is comprised predominantly of working-class people disenfranchised with the economic status quo, gives rise to a tension that will soon be impossible for Farage to ignore.

‍

It should perhaps not be a surprise that a political party comprised of ex-Conservatives, most having joined Reform as a reaction to the perceived drifting of the Conservative party to the ideological centre, would not be more pro-workers or pro-wealth redistribution. Nor should it be a surprise that the millionaires who have, combined, pledged over £20 million to Reform’s cause, were not parting with their capital out of unrequited benevolence, but as an exchange for political capital.

‍

However, what is a shock is that the 64% of Reform voters who considered themselves lower-middle or working class (socioeconomic grades C1, C2 & DE), and who are undoubtedly worried about increasing unaffordability and the entrenchment of economic inequality, put their faith in a political party that is committed to solving neither of those issues. The only suitable justification for this anomaly would be that Reform voters, who disproportionately cluster in the post-industrial towns of North-East England and are yet to enjoy the promised fruits of globalisation and de-industrialisation, are simply not aware of Reform’s economic policies, instead being drawn to their anti-immigration rhetoric. But this will not last long, and that leaves a dilemma for Farage.

‍

Reform’s 2024 manifesto, the most comprehensive insight to their political ambitions to date, promised tax cuts that the IPPR labelled ‘highly regressive’, and which displayed a degree of fiscal irresponsibility that would make Liz Truss’s eyes water.  Included in it, almost as a thank you to every wannabe-plutocrat for their generous donations, was a promise to lower corporation tax from 25% to 20%, and then down again to 15% in Year 3 of government. Assuredly, this would make Reform voters- 1/3rd of whom have an annual pre-tax income of less than £25,000- whoop for joy. Done under the auspices of attempting to forge a ‘permissive regulatory regime that allows businesses to thrive, innovate and compete away from taxation’ (in the words of Reform MP Sara Pochin), these policy ideals do nothing except embed the neoliberal economic paradigm that Reform voters were trying so hard to escape.

‍

The manifesto also illustrated plans to reform income tax and increase tax-free allowance thresholds, which research suggests would increase the average annual household disposable income for the richest 20% by £2400, but in the poorest 20% of households by a meagre £380. The blatant contradiction between voter perceptions of Reform as a serious party that can improve working-class livelihoods, and the reality - that their economic model is based around an exacerbated discrepancy between the top 5% and bottom 95% -means the uneasy coalition that has formed around a disillusionment with the establishment will inevitably unravel sooner or later.

‍

Reform claim these tax cuts - which combine to approximately £88bn a year, nearly twice Truss’s disastrous mini-budget - would be financed by ambiguously cutting waste, unproductive spending, and bureaucratic red tape in a DOGE-styled guillotining of the public services that working people rely on every day to stay afloat. Aside from betraying the same voters who fled to them precisely because they’d felt betrayed by the political centre, these policy proposals are so unrealistic it would undoubtedly force government borrowing to increase. At a time when the Chancellor is seriously considering breaking ironclad manifesto pledges, so bad is the state of government finances, and a time where according to the OBR, debt interest repayments represent almost 10p of every £1 of government spending and total at over £112bn, Reform’s promise to deregulate, tax less and abolish business rates is the quintessence of deluded populism.

‍

Reform’s beliefs that the economic woes plaguing working British people can be fixed by blunt market liberalization and deregulation of business to stimulate economic growth are in direct contradiction with what is really required for improved livelihoods. If Farage continues to preach these tenets as the core of the Reform economic strategy - which closely resemble the post-2008 austerity measures that created these precarious conditions in the first place - the collapse of Reform’s voter base is not an if, but a when.