Farage wages ‘war’: Reform leader tells Mail he’ll face down riots, protests and strikes to cut Britain’s bloated welfare bill

Nigel Farage has vowed to wage ‘war’ on Britain’s charity culture.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, the Reform UK leader said his party was prepared to crush protests, strikes and even riots to cut the bloated welfare bill if it seized power at the next election.

Mr Farage said a “major shift in thinking” was needed to make the benefits system affordable and tackle growing anger among working people over the crippling size of benefits.

He said Britain needed to become a ‘much tougher society’, adding: ‘Attitudes will need to harden. A huge shift in thinking is needed about benefits; “This will be the biggest war of all,” he said.

‘I’m sorry, but mild anxiety is not a reason to get disability benefits; not just. We can’t afford this, it can’t continue.

‘And there will be riots and there will be strikes and there will be protests and we know all that, but this is what we have to do; It needs to be done. We can’t afford that right now.’

The warning came in a wide-ranging interview with the Mail, in which Mr Farage said:

• He has promised to implement a radical cheap energy policy, including giving the green light to fracking and abandoning Ed Miliband’s ‘stupid’ Net Zero targets;

• Warn the European Union that it will scrap any Brexit reset deal agreed by Sir Keir;

• He distanced himself from Donald Trump’s Iran conflict, saying his longtime friend was starting to get ‘a little worried about his judgment’;

• He downplayed the possibility of an election deal with the Conservatives, saying they ‘don’t deserve to survive’;

• He suggested his party would be backed by an army of ‘shy Reformers’ who had yet to publicly announce their intention to leave Labor and the Conservatives.

• The reform has already set out proposals that it says would save more than £20bn from the welfare bill, including ending the right of foreign nationals to claim benefits here.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, the Reform UK leader said his party is prepared to crush protests, strikes and even riots to cut the bloated welfare bill if it seizes power at the next election

It seems that the party is preparing plans that will go much further.

The proposals, to be published after local elections, would cut tens of billions of pounds of social benefits and could require millions of currently inactive people to look for work.

Mr Farage claimed Reform UK had now acquired its identity as the ‘party of working people’.

‘I’m sorry, but as I travel around the country… I believe there is now a big divide in British society… those who work and those who don’t,’ he said.

Mr Farage described a recent conversation he had with a constituent in Clacton; He said he was tired of working seven days a week, but he was no better off than people sitting at home asking for government help.

The Reform leader said the man told him: ‘The prostitutes next door get up at noon, Deliveroo brings the lunch. They smoke dope all afternoon. They’re as good off as I am.’

Mr Farage added: ‘It actually summed up what a lot of people felt. And yes, on the economy, we can encourage those in business, but we can’t keep paying a bigger (welfare) bill in the same way.

‘From a social perspective this will be the biggest war we have ever faced.’

Mr Farage also vowed to lead a debate to change attitudes towards success, accusing Rachel Reeves of overseeing ‘an attack on private enterprise, an attack on business and, worse, an attack on savings’.

Mr Farage claims Reform UK is now a ‘party of working people’

‘There is a huge divide in British society… those who work and those who don’t,’ the reform leader said. (Image: RMT workers striking on Tuesday)

‘The economic transformation this country needs is so fundamental and so massive, but it is also largely attitudinal,’ he said. ‘It’s all about business, success, the concept of taking risks.

‘And now when you poll, there’s a country that wants to punish anyone who does a good job.

‘We actually need to fight against this. This is where political leadership, not political following, comes into play. ‘I was never, ever afraid of it.’

Britain’s overall welfare bill is expected to reach £400bn a year by the end of this decade; a staggering increase of £70bn on today’s figure.

The sickness benefits bill alone is expected to rise from £83bn last year to £109bn by the end of the decade; This is an increase of more than 30 percent in real terms.

Earlier this month, Mr Farage pledged to keep pensions in a triple lock, saying the pledge would be funded by ‘the biggest cuts to the benefits bill ever seen in this country’s history’.

In a sign of his hardening approach, he recently abandoned plans to abandon the two-child benefit limit, saying a future Reform government would now reverse Labour’s £3bn decision to make huge payments to thousands of unemployed families in Britain.

The reform claims the plan to stop foreign nationals, including EU citizens, from receiving benefits could save £9bn a year, although this figure is disputed by experts.

The party has also announced plans to end Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for hundreds of thousands of people with mild mental health problems such as anxiety, potentially saving a further £9 billion in the long term.