Yesterday the Reform Party published its contact for the election. It is a manifesto in all but name, and it is significantly shorter than the other main parties. It features a lot of detail behind the main policies the party are running on and it is designed as a manifesto for the next 5 years rather than just the next parliament. Offering a completely different approach to politics and the UK it will be interesting to see how this looks to people up and down the UK. It is a distinctly small-c conservative manifesto and features some policies that will be popular to a large section of the electorate.
Unsurprisingly the main feature of the document refers to immigration. A freeze on non-essential workers (so NHS, health and social care workers are exempt) and the banning of dependents of those on student visas will look to be the main hallmark of bringing immigration numbers down. With currently around 50% of the current influx of over a million gross in immigration being dependents this policy would see substantial results. Integration via a more robust policy on ‘what it means to be British’ with a more patriotic curriculum, banning ‘woke practises’ in education and the emphasis on the positives of British history will look to better integrate arrivals and young Britons.
On illegal immigration Reform are true to their previous promises and would leave the European Court of Human Rights. A law would be passed making it illegal regardless of status for illegal immigrants to stay and a safe returns policy to France would be enacted, ending the small boats crisis in a style similar to the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott with regards to boats from Indonesia.
On tax, the party want to raise the minimum tax threshold from £12,000 to £20,000 per year, taking the minimum wage jobs out of tax altogether. This would also save pensioners from being dragged into taxation too through inflation. A tax on employers choosing to employ non-British workers would also come in. The mixture of these two policies would raise money for the exchequer , helping to take over 5 million British people out of the perceived benefits trap (over 5 million people of working age choosing not to work for various reasons) and incentivising work. They would raise the maximum tax threshold from £50,000 to £70,000 per year, scrap VAT on energy bills, lower fuel duty, lower corporation tax, a tax relief on private school fees, abolish inheritance tax for estates under £2m and massively reduce Stamp Duty.
The party also want to start demanding zero interest rates for government money printed out for big banks. At the moment the Bank of England prints out money for banks via Quantative Easing and is then charged interest on the printing of money. The Reform Party propose eliminating interest and saving the country a lot of money in debt repayments.
Reform want to get rid of the First-Past-The-Post and replace it with Proportional Representation, reform the House of Lords to be elected, scrapping postal voting and to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights (this last one taking an aim at the Equalities Act which enshrines so-called ‘protected groups’ in an elevated legal status).
On health, the party want to raise money for the NHS by using a hybrid system for vouchers for people waiting longer than 60 days to use private health, seeking to remove waiting lists within 2 years. They want to create a system where those who can would pay for private treatment rather than using the NHS in exchange for tax breaks, further removing the burden on the NHS. The party would remove the cap on medical students university places (there’s a cap?!) and would wipe out medical student debt in a decade and all medical staff in the NHS to pay less tax. They would also create a royal commission to investigate what to do with improving social care.
Reform would hire another 40,000 police officers, enact stricter sentences on drug crimes, automatic life sentences for violent offenders and pump in £2bn to the justice system to clear the backlog of cases which are high at the moment, reversing the current trend of law becoming more lenient (currently you can shoplift up to £250 and not be prosecuted).
Reform want to ban foreign trawlers from fishing in UK waters, increased financial assistance for farmers and encouraging British people to ‘buy British’ in the markets by actually showing what food was actual produced by British farmers (currently food packaged as originating in Britain needs only to come from a supplier, not a farmer).
Reform want to increase defence spending from 2 to 3% by 2029.
To pay for all of this they would scrap the Net-Zero targets, saving £30bn a year. They would invest in oil and gas, reduce welfare spending for those who refuse job offers and refusing benefits to immigrants who have not worked in the system for 5 years. Reform would also cut red tape, foreign aid by 50% and would find £50bn on cutting the civil service bill. This as well as taxing companies for employing foreign workers through National Insurance rises. £40bn would also be found with cutting interest payments mentioned above.
Looking at the contract in full the main criticism revolves around the claims of savings. The money saved cutting the civil service is the most contentious of this, but the party claim it can be found. There have been estimates that the entire civil service budget is only £40bn to savings of £50bn might be difficult, but we must remember that the civil service outsources a lot of its work elsewhere so perhaps this is where the Reform party find their number. If, however, the party is right about where it can find the money then this contract/manifesto is the only truly costed plan compared to all of the other parties. Their fiscal ‘black hole’ is more about speculation than an actual gap between money raised and money spent. They’ve done the work.
This contact is popular amongst millions of Tory voters, would be popular with young people with the promise of not paying taxes, good for democrats who want to see more reflective democracy and it will please radicals who think the country is genuinely broken. There is a palpable sense of despair when it comes to the view of the UK and Reform’s contract is genuinely a different approach to governing the UK. In many ways it is reflective of the business-savvy brains at the top of the Reform Party. Richard Tice, current chairman, is a very successful businessman. David Bull, the deputy leader, has a lot of experience on the health service. Ben Habib, another deputy, is a really successful businessman and quite popular with some of the electorate. There seems to be some genuine thinking going on here.
How will this be received in the wider UK? There is now meat behind the Reform pledges and there will be little grumbling or worries about the perceived ‘fiscal problems’, largely because every party as that in their manifestos. The party has positioned itself very well as a genuine alternative in terms of how to run the country, but for this election these pledges might just not have the exposure long enough to make a real difference, especially as those who have applied for a postal vote (about 1/5 of the electorate) will be able to start sending theirs in from today onwards. The contract will be useful for those with a bit more time on their hands to investigate more the promises of the major parties and the workings behind them. It will probably net the party a few hundred-thousand more votes but the party has got everything but time and money, essential for getting the word about about this contract and giving people enough time to digest the detail.
Will the party have enough time to turn this contract into as much of a success as the return of Nigel Farage? Probably not. Then again it is important to remember that this contract is part of a 5 year plan. The time and maybe even the money problem might just go away, especially if this contract and the party become appealing to the right people, with deeper pockets and more influence themselves.
A contract for the future?
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.thetdltimes.com.
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