The numbers don't add up. I think "Removing the 2 child benefit cap" and "Increasing NHS spending" are good things, but they're not free, and the supposed cost-saving measures they're talking about mostly serve to demonstrate they don't know what the government is paying for anyway.
Immigration is always a funny one for the UK especially, given how people tend to look at gross numbers instead of which sectors the immigrants work in, and the discourse about why locals demonstrably do not fill those roles is mostly just insisting that locals can no matter what current unemployment levels actually are. Before I left the UK, the stereotype was all the Poles moving to the UK and building houses: UK should have invited over more builders, then there wouldn't be a shortage of houses.
Immigration is a shared bit of populist lunacy Reform have in common with the Conservatives and Labour: promises to be tough on immigration, then they get power and look at what the consequences would be of doing that, and put all the blame on asylum seekers* that are banned from working and therefore safe to kick out no matter how at risk they are in their countries of origin.
The below are conservative estimates of the money raised by Reform policies:
* £10bn+ per year - Adjusting how the Bank of England (BoE) treats reserves — e.g. stopping interest payments to commercial banks that receive money under quantitative easing (QE)
* £11bn+ per year - Rolling back expensive "net zero" policies
* £9bn+ per year - Alter eligibility for welfare
* £25bn - Scrap HS2
* multiple billions - Reducing foreign aid budget and cost of housing illegal migrants.
It's likely that pro-growth Reform policies such as lowering corporation tax to make the UK more competitive will significantly increase the corporation tax take - as was shown when the Tories entered power in 2010, lowered the corp tax rate and corp tax revenue increased significantly. In general, Reform's tax cuts are aimed at increasing the tax base.
> * £11bn+ per year - Rolling back expensive "net zero" policies
These in particular are fictional. That's an obsolete (due to tech improvements) estimate of the private sector costs.
At this point, with the tech now available, almost everyone gets rich by doing net zero, almost nobody saves money by abandoning it.
> * £9bn+ per year - Alter eligibility for welfare
"Welfare" includes e.g. the child benefit cap. You can save a lot by spending less. Do you want to spend less? OK, fine. But that's the cost: a majority have to agree who gets to be the next scapegoat, and the child benefit cap was itself introduced back when parents with too many kids were the scapegoat.
> * £25bn - Scrap HS2
Scrapping a one off payment to save money in the short term, at the cost of worsening long-term economic benefits by failing to improve national logistics.
> housing illegal migrants.
Do you mean asylum seekers? Reason I ask is that people who are actually in the UK illegally (which is different), don't cost "billions". Asylum seekers are housed because they're banned from working, theory is that if they work they might stay, IMO this is BS and everyone would benefit if they were allowed to get jobs and look after themselves.
Even without that there absolutely are savings to be made on the cost of asylum seekers (who are not "illegal migrants"). They're looked after at a total cost of about £100/person/day, and obviously (even without changing the "banned by law from working" thing) they could be looked after at about half that (or less) given what UK incomes are. But that's a whole one billion per year you might save from not letting UK hotels rip you off, or two if you let these people work and support themselves.
> It's likely that pro-growth Reform policies such as lowering corporation tax to make the UK more competitive will significantly increase the corporation tax take - as was shown when the Tories entered power in 2010, lowered the corp tax rate and corp tax revenue increased significantly. In general, Reform's tax cuts are aimed at increasing the tax base.
Even with the best will in the world, this kind of thing is unlikely to make a dent in comparison to the core Reform policy of hating their nearest and biggest market. Brexit (and consider who owns Reform) has cost the economy an estimated 6-8% GDP by this point, per year, in lost growth opportunities — around £200bn/year.
The biggest thing any government could do to increase the tax base is to get a bigger workforce to tax. Which means more immigrants, which is why Lab and Con don't ever do anything about immigrant workers despite saying so. This was also one of the benefits of the UK being in the EU, in that all of labour, capital, and goods could move around more freely to meet business opportunities, help with growth.
> At this point, with the tech now available, almost everyone gets rich by doing net zero
The likes of Dale Vince (Ecotricity), certainly get rich by doing net zero. Significant levies have been placed on taxpayers and consumers for years, with the money flowing into the companies of politically-connected individuals like Vince.
> the child benefit cap was itself introduced back when parents with too many kids were the scapegoat.
Parents that choose to have more children than they can afford are not "scapegoats." They are breaking the social contract.
The benefit cap was not retro-actively applied. It didn't put any existing children in poverty. It only applied to future births, to parents who were choosing to have children at the expense of taxpayers.
> Scrapping a one off payment to save money in the short term, at the cost of worsening long-term economic benefits by failing to improve national logistics [HS2].
The project cost has ballooned to the point where it will exceed the long term projected economic benefit (benefit-cost ratio of 0.9, as per a 2022 review). It is a white elephant.
> Do you mean asylum seekers?
No, I mean illegal migrants, as I said. Genuine Asylum seekers don't throw their documents overboard and illegally enter the country on a dinghy from France.
Take the war in Ukraine and and the post-war threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan for example - in both cases, the UK government made advance provision for documented, background-checked individuals, including the elderly, women and children (as you'd expect from genuine refugees). And the UK made safe routes available for those people. That's how the system should work.
Those who illegally enter the country via the Channel are 88-90% male, most of whom are fighting-age, and most of whom originate from countries that are not currently at war.
> that's a whole one billion per year you might save from not letting UK hotels rip you off, or two if you let these people work and support themselves.
If these people are allowed to economically benefit from illegally entering our country, it will send completely the wrong message to the third world countries they came from.
I don't want low-skilled/unskilled unvetted immigration that lowers our country's productivity, makes women and girls less safe, impacts public services and housing, divides our finite welfare spend and causes ghettoisation and (eventually) Balkanisation of my own country. Why would I want that?
> Brexit (and consider who owns Reform) has cost the economy an estimated 6-8% GDP by this point, per year, in lost growth opportunities — around £200bn/year.
I've heard various figures bandied around by continuity Remainers. They vary wildly, because at this point, nearly ten years later, it's impossible to scientifically compare a Brexit/non-Brexit scenario.
All we can know are the facts - Brexit gave us a huge opportunity to align our regulation with the precise nature of our economy, and an opportunity to avoid burdensome EU regulation (this is already happening in terms of the EU's hapless AI regulation). It's also an opportunity to avoid paying tens of billions of pounds annually into the EU's black hole unaccounted budget every year (consider the lifetime cost of that expense!)
The fact that the Europhillic Tory and Labour establishment failed to capitalise fully on Brexit is their fault - not the fault of the majority of voters who voted to leave the EU.
Luckily we have a party in 2029 who is unaligned with the Brussels and Strasbourg establishment, and who can make the bold decisions required to capitalise on our new freedoms and sovereignty. I relish this prospect.
> The likes of Dale Vince (Ecotricity), certainly get rich by doing net zero. Significant levies have been placed on taxpayers and consumers for years, with the money flowing into the companies of politically-connected individuals like Vince.
Unlike others in the environment and green energy sector, some of whom were highly critical of Labour’s roll-back, Vince was unperturbed. “We can get 100 per cent of renewable energy with no public money,”
Vince explained that the real barriers to the green transition are not necessarily financial ones. Rather, the biggest hurdle to a fast, ubiquitous roll-out of green power is the UK’s tricky and long-winded planning system. One example he pointed to was the de facto ban on onshore wind, put in place by the former Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, in 2015.
The cheapest sources of electricity are now the renewables.
This has been true without any subsidies for some time, including in the UK.
But there are still good reasons for government subsidies, specifically to get private homes insulated:
Another crucial national project for Labour will be their warm homes plan. Backed by £6.6bn over the next parliament, the party has said it will “upgrade five million homes to cut bills for families”. It has not yet provided details on how it plans to do so.
Which *drumroll* saves the occupants money while also keeping them warmer.
> Parents that choose to have more children than they can afford are not "scapegoats." They are breaking the social contract.
So, you're not in favour of ending the child benefit cap? Funny, I thought you were, from how you said it before. Guess that means you must regard the Reform-supported (but also actually implemented by Labour already) policy of "Removing the 2 child benefit cap" as an example of "lunacy".
After all, if someone "needs" any child benefit payments, even for the first child, then this by definition means they could not afford the child(ren); and if they don't "need" it then surely this is wasted money.
No, I think the demographic crisis in the west is because most people look at their finances and think "I cannot afford to have children". When children are below replacement rates and you restrict immigration, you have a ticking time bomb on your pension system, no matter how it's supposed to be funded.
> The project cost has ballooned to the point where it will exceed the long term projected economic benefit (benefit-cost ratio of 0.9, as per a 2022 review). It is a white elephant.
2/3rds of the cost has already been spent; cancelling it at this point only makes sense if the remaining cost exceeds the lifetime benefits, not if the total cost exceeds the lifetime benefits. That is why only bits of it have been cancelled so far, not the whole thing. If some future review ends up saying that the remaining cost isn't worth it, the government of the day will cancel it all by themselves, Reform wouldn't be special in this regard, just as they're not special for listing a bunch of things they don't really understand the details about in an un-audited campaign promise for an election they didn't win.
Also extra bonus irony points: HS2 received funding from the European Union's Connecting Europe Facility.
> No, I mean illegal migrants, as I said.
Then they don't cost anything. At least, not directly. Un-registered migrants working illegally could be said to "cost" the taxes they ought to be paying.
> Take the war in Ukraine and and the post-war threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan for example - in both cases, the UK government made advance provision for documented, background-checked individuals, including the elderly, women and children (as you'd expect from genuine refugees). And the UK made safe routes available for those people. That's how the system should work.
As per your own link, January to 21 April 2024, second biggest group on the small boats crossing the channel was Afghans, at 19.4%. Iran (lots of reasons to flee that place besides the occasional "it's not a war honest" exchange of fire with Israel), 11.3%. Sudan, in a civil war, 6.5%.
> most of whom are fighting-age,
A term so vague it encompasses basically anyone physically capable of making the trip.
Like, consider how many 12 year olds and 55 year olds could actually do this kind of journey in the first place, it's not going to be a high fraction of them.
Though to be blunt, it's also the case that very few of the total refugees get as far as the UK anyway. Back when the Syrian crisis was at it's peak, UK was losing its collective mind over a few thousand refugees from there when something like 4 million went to countries adjacent to Syria and a million went to Germany.
> most of whom originate from countries that are not currently at war.
And how many are gay fleeing homophobia, and how many are christians (or irreligious, or the wrong kind of muslim) fleeing from theocracy? Turkey's on the small boats list too: also not at war, but the authoritarian turn of the government put people at risk.
> If these people are allowed to economically benefit from illegally entering our country, it will send completely the wrong message to the third world countries they came from.
If these people are allowed to *pay taxes* and *cover their own rent*.
Look, if you don't want their money, fine. But what kind of message do you think you're sending with the current rule of "if you make it to the UK, they'll put a roof over your head, feed you, and not only do you not need to do any work to pay for this, they won't even allow you to do any work!"
(The other thing is that these people are in many cases being ripped off by people-traffickers; the "illegal" part of their entry is crossing the very busy channel on very inadequate vessels, which is illegal because it's so incredibly dangerous, a fact which kills many of these people who spent their life savings to do it).
> I've heard various figures bandied around by continuity Remainers. They vary wildly, because at this point, nearly ten years later, it's impossible to scientifically compare a Brexit/non-Brexit scenario.
If you don't want to believe financial experts' modelling, that's your call. You don't get to then claim the financial optimism of whoever you fancy instead, which is what you were doing.
> It's also an opportunity to avoid paying tens of billions of pounds annually into the EU's black hole unaccounted budget every year (consider the lifetime cost of that expense!)
Calling it "unaccounted" shows you don't understand accounting.
But then, I already knew that because of everything you've tried to claim in response to "The numbers don't add up […] the supposed cost-saving measures they're talking about mostly serve to demonstrate they don't know what the government is paying for anyway."
> The fact that the Europhillic Tory and Labour establishment failed to capitalise fully on Brexit is their fault - not the fault of the majority of voters who voted to leave the EU.
There's no kind way to say this, but you'll be better for taking it on-board: The fact you think the Tories, especially under Johnson, were "Europhillic", says you're so out of touch with reality that you don't understand how out of touch you are. Johnson literally got in trouble with his fellow journalists for making up lies about the EU, and never showed any sign of changing his ways, he and Farage are basically the reason the UK came to believe so many myths about the EU over the years.
I know that Leavers like to think that, e.g. May was a Remainer, but the fact is that nobody liked her Brexit, no matter if they voted leave or remain. Her failure was followed by the indicative votes where all possible 8 "solutions" were opposed by a majority of MPs; this was fairly representative of the country as a whole, because while a strict majority of voters wanted "a" Brexit, your preferred Brexit is one that other people who voted leave hated more than staying in the EU, and vice-versa.
(This is also why Reform are "only" on 28%, instead of getting the 52%-less-deaths who voted Leave: even your fellow travellers don't all agree on which Brexit, not even now).
You mean replacing it with renewable five year visas that have reasonable salary thresholds and English language criteria, and which still allow the holder to apply for citizenship?
Why is that lunacy?
ILR is the immigration equivalent of "squatters' rights" - completely immoral IMO.
> the small possibility of being a Russian asset of course
The Left tried that with Trump too. It didn't work out for them, and I doubt this tactic will damage Farage either. It smacks of desperation IMO, just like all the silly childhood racism heresay.
Removing the 2 child benefit cap? Increasing NHS spending? Returning to New Labour levels of net immigration, being a country with borders?
> That said I will find it very very funny if the Conservative party ends up last from that list.
At least we agree on that. The Tories deserve to be confined to the dustbin of history.