Today, Nigel Farage has pledged to scrap the two-child benefit cap, reintroduce the winter fuel allowance, and wants to see a transferrable tax allowance between people who are married – but not everyone thinks his numbers add up. He’s also under fire for a social media advert in Scotland.
Income tax
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said Reform UK’s plans to raise the threshold for paying income tax to £20,000 would cost between £50bn and £80bn.
Stuart Adam, a senior economist at the research institute, said the announcements on winter fuel and the two-child benefit cap were “dwarfed” by the tax policy.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: “Those are all significant things, and they are high-profile new public announcements, but actually they are all still dwarfed by some of the big policies that were in the manifesto last year, and today Nigel Farage recommitted to increasing the income tax allowance to £20,000, which depending on details might cost £50bn, £60bn, £70bn, £80bn.”
Social media
Also, Anas Sarwar has called Nigel Farage a “pathetic and poisonous individual” amid a growing row about a Reform UK ad in Scotland.
A social media video published by the party focused on Sarwar, and has been described as “racist” by both Labour and the SNP.
Text on the video says he wants to “prioritise the Pakistani community”, despite the Glasgow MSP not saying this in any of the clips.
5 Failures
Ignoring these very recent failures, Sebastian Salek listed five major Reform failures already.
Sebastian Salek wrote: “Reform is stumbling harder than anyone expected. Their local election victories were a brief flash of glory. But the reality of governing has quickly exposed their inexperience. 5 early failures:”
1.
“Scrapping floods committee… in a flooding hotspot Reform-run Lincolnshire Council abolished its flooding scrutiny committee, which holds Anglian Water and the Environment Agency to account. This was Lincolnshire in January:”
2.
“Promising to remove something that doesn’t exist Reform said there would be a “large-scale reversal” of low-traffic neighbourhoods across the 10 council areas they control. Easy promise to keep, because there aren’t any LTNs in any of those places.”
3.
“Councillors abandoning ship Reform councillors across at least five councils left the party or quit within days of being elected. With vetting this bad, expect more departures:”
4.
“Mayors ignoring party policy Reform’s official position is to scrap net zero completely, but: • Hull and East Yorkshire’s mayor backed a green energy partnership • Greater Lincolnshire’s mayor called for offshore wind investment.”
5.
“MP couldn’t explain their flagship policy Reform’s new Runcorn MP was asked how the party would actually ‘stop the boats’… (Not a comfortable watch)”
Related: Nigel Farage roasted as Reform’s unfunded manifesto dubbed “Trussonomics on steroids”
