Nigel Farage issues ‘riot’ warning as he declares war on benefits UK | UK | News
Nigel Farage has vowed to wage “war” on Britain’s charity culture and warned that Reform UK is prepared to face riots, strikes and protests to shoot down the welfare bill if it comes to power at the next election.
A “major shift in thinking” on benefits is needed to make welfare affordable and tackle growing resentment among workers over the scale of benefits, the Reform UK leader said in an interview on Wednesday.
“Attitudes will have to harden. There needs to be a huge change of thinking 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; it just isn’t. We can’t afford it, 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 has to be done. We can’t afford it right now.”
What are the Reformation’s welfare plans?
Detailed proposals that would cost tens of billions of pounds from the welfare budget are being finalized before being published after local elections, with the plans expected to push millions of currently inactive people back into the job market. Farage claimed that Reformation had now become the “party of the working people”.
“I believe there’s a big divide in British society now: those who work and those who don’t,” he said.
A conversation with a Clacton voter captured the stark frustration driving the welfare agenda, Farage told the Daily Mail. The man was fed up with inoculating seven days a week and found himself on par financially with his neighbors who stayed home on benefits.
The man told Farage: “The prostitutes next door get up at lunchtime, Deliveroo delivers the lunch. They smoke dope all afternoon. They’re as well off as I am.”
Farage added: “It actually summed up what a lot of people feel. And yes, on the economy, we can encourage those in business, but we can’t just keep paying a bigger (welfare) bill in the same way. Socially, this will be the biggest battle we’ve ever faced.”
What does Farage say about Britain’s attitude to success?
Farage also vowed to lead a cultural shift in attitudes towards work and success, accusing Chancellor Rachel Reeves of presiding over “an attack on private enterprise, an attack on business and, worse, an attack on savings”.
“We now have a country where, when you take an opinion poll, they want to punish everyone who does good work. In fact, we need to fight against this,” he said.
How big is Britain’s welfare bill?
The country’s welfare bill is on track to exceed £400bn a year before the decade is out; a £70bn increase in existing spending. Sickness benefits account for most of the increase; The bill in this category alone is projected to rise from £83bn last year to £109bn by 2030; an increase of more than 30 percent in real terms.
What other welfare policies did the Reformation announce?
Earlier this month Farage committed to keeping pensions in a triple lock, saying it would be funded by “the biggest cuts to the benefits bill ever seen in the history of this country”. He also reversed his stance on the two-child benefit cap, saying the Reform government would cancel Labour’s £3bn decision to pay out payments to thousands of unemployed families.
Farage has set his sights on Personal Independence Payments and announced plans to remove the benefit from hundreds of thousands of claimants with mild mental health conditions; The party says the move could save £9bn over time.
A further £9bn is estimated to come from preventing foreign nationals, including EU citizens, from accessing the aid system, although independent experts dispute this estimate.
