Reform’s plan to cut EU citizens’ benefits would risk trade war with Europe, Labour claims – UK politics live

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Farage says proposal to take items like jewellery from asylum seekers 'a gimmick'

Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf are now taking questions.

Q: [From GB News] What impact will the increase in the NHS surcharge have on waiting lists? And will the home secretary’s asylum plans stop the boats?

Farage says, in rhetorical terms, what Shabana Mahmood said was very encouraging. But he does not think it will work.

And he describes the proposal to take jewellery off people as a “gimmick”. Even in Denmark, where this has been tried, only 17 people have had items removed from them, he says.

On the NHS surcharge, Yusuf says the changes he is proposing would not have a “meaningful impact” on demand.

Reform UK policy chief Zia Yusuf claims Labour spending on foreigners, to deteriment of British nationals, is 'treachery'

Back at the Reform UK press conference, Zia Yusuf, the party’s head of policy, has just finished outlining his plan to cut spending on foreigners

As he finished, Yusuf claimed this was “treachery”.

Labour is making the conscious and deliberate decision to continue funding extortionate amounts to foreign nationals, to the detriment of British citizens.

And I don’t know what to call that. Frankly, my view is treachery. I think it’s appalling. British people are sick and tired of it.

Badenoch says Labour is raising taxes in budget 'to pay for Starmer's weakness on welfare cuts'

Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, are speaking at their press conference.

The Tories released an extract from Badenoch’s speech overnight, and in it she says Labour will raise taxes in the budget “to pay for Keir Starmer’s weakness on welfare cuts”. She says:

Just a few months ago, Rachel Reeves was saying she couldn’t afford to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Now it looks like becoming her latest U-turn.

This isn’t because the economic circumstances have improved. Quite the opposite.

Remember, a fortnight ago Reeves summoned the media to Downing Street to blame everyone from the OBR, to Brexit, to Trump, for her own economic mismanagement.

We need to call this out for what it is: Labour are raising taxes to pay for Keir Starmer’s weakness on welfare cuts.

He has already U-turned on £5bn of welfare savings in the face of pressure from his left-wing backbenchers.

And because Starmer has no backbone, he is now set to lift the two-child benefit cap. That’s around £8.5bn of additional welfare spending.

I have already said that if this Labour government scraps the two-child benefit cap a future Conservative government will bring it back.

The cap is fair because it forces people on benefits to decide if they can afford to have more children, in the same way those who work have to decide if they can afford more children.

Keir Starmer has already broken his pre-election promise not to raise tax on working people with last year’s Jobs Tax, which has been passed on to all of us through higher prices, lower wages and fewer jobs.

He and Reeves are now set to go even further: freezing income tax thresholds so that more and more people are dragged into higher rates through a stealth tax bombshell.

Rachel Reeves even said at the Budget last year that “extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people” and “take money out of their payslips”.

They’re hiking taxes on people in work, to give handouts to people on benefits, the last group of people who might still vote Labour.

It’s not fair, it’s not right, and we will oppose them every single step of the way.

Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride at their press conference at the British Academy in Carlton House Terrace, London. Photograph: Lucy North/PA

At the Reform UK press conference Nigel Farage, the party’s leader, opened by saying he agreed with “a lot” of what Shabana Mahmood announced yesterday.

But the real problem was not illegal migration, but legal migration, he said. He went on:

It is doing enormous damage to the British economy. And it’s been so difficult to even talk about this subject without being screamed down.

(Obviously, that has not stopped Farage, who has talked about little else in recent years.)

Farage went on to introduce Zia Yusuf, the party’s head of policy, who is now discussing the proposed spending cuts briefed overnight. (See 9.01am.)

Steve Reed suggests Labour MPs have duty to support asylum plans, saying manifesto promised secure borders

Steve Reed, the housing secretary, has suggested that Labour MPs have a duty to support the asylum plans announced yesterday.

In an interview with Sky News, asked if Labour backbenchers opposed to the plans should join the Green party, Reed replied:

Absolutely not. Every single one of us who is a Labour MP was elected on the same manifesto, and that manifesto committed us now as a government to securing our borders.

It’s very important that we do that. The British people expect us to do that. But we also have to end this vile trade in human lives.

Rajeev Syal is the Guardian’s home affairs editor.

Net migration under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government peaked at a slightly higher level than previously estimated, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In the year ending March 2023, overall numbers of people entering and leaving the UK reached 944,000 compared with the previous estimate of 906,000 for the year ending June 2023.

The figures were released after an improvement in the method by which the number of UK and EU nationals entering and leaving the country is calculated, the ONS said.

This was followed by a sharper fall than initially reported, with net migration in the year ending December 2024 now estimated to be 345,000, lower than original estimate of 431,000 that was published by the ONS in May of this year.

There are two press conferences starting at 10am.

You can watch the Reform UK one here.

And you can watch the Conservative party one here.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, arriving at Downing Street for cabinet this morning. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Most Reform UK voters would back wealth tax on very rich, poll suggests

A majority of potential Reform UK voters would back a one-off wealth tax on the very rich, polling suggests, with about three-quarters supporting windfall taxes on energy companies and banks, Peter Walker reports.

In France the far-right National Rally, whose politics loosely align with Reform UK’s, has backed a wealth tax. But the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has consistently opposed the idea, saying it would lead to high earners leaving Britain, and the party itself was, in its early days, highly dependent on a relatively small number of wealthy donors.

Alf Dubs says he's 'depressed' by Labour's asylum plans, which are 'going in wrong direction'

Alf Dubs, the Labour peer and former MP who came to the UK on Kindertransport in 1939 and who campaigns on behalf of migrants, told the Today programme this morning that he was “depressed” by the asylum politicies announced by the government yesterday. He explained:

I find it upsetting that we’ve got to adopt such a hard line – what we need is a bit of compassion in our politics, and I think that some of the measures were going in the wrong direction, they won’t help.

The hard line approach will not, in fact, deter people from coming here – at least on the basis of people I spoke to in Calais, for example – I don’t think it will deter them.

There are some some minor things in the proposal which will be okay but on the whole I think we’re going in the wrong direction – very much so.

He said he was particularly concerned by the proposal for the government to focus more on deporting families with children.

I think there is a proper case for children, there’s a proper case for family reunion – when there are children who are on their own and who’ve got family in this country, then I think the right thing to do is to have family reunion and bringing children over here.

But to use children as a weapon, as the home secretary is doing, I think is a shabby thing – I’m lost for words, frankly, because my concern was that if we remove people who come here, what happens if they’ve had children in the meantime?

What are we supposed to do with children who are born here, who’ve been to school here, who are part of our community, our society? We can’t just say, ‘oh well, out you go because your parents don’t claim to be here’.

Reform UK's plan to cut EU citizens’ benefits would risk trade war with Europe, Labour claims

Good morning. Yesterday, as the government announced drastic plans to curb the number of asylum seekers able to stay in the UK, it was accused of adopting the politics of Reform UK, the anti-immigration party with a big lead in the opinion polls. In response, ministers argued that Labour would be doing even worse if it just ignored the legitimate concerns of voters who are supporting Nigel Farage’s party.

But, when mainstream parties move on to the territory of the more extreme parties, those parties often respond with a further lurch to the right, and we will see an example of that today. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference where he is going to announce proposals that cover immigration and the budget (the other huge story preoccupying Westminster politics at the moment). As Peter Walker reports, Farage will propose spending cuts which he clams would save £25bn a year.

At the heart of the plan are three proposals, all of which involve penalising foreigners. They are:

• The virtual elimination of all foreign aid spending. Currently aid spending runs at almost £14bn a year, but Reform would slash this to £1bn.

• Removing the right of EU nationals living in the UK to claim benefits, which Reform UK says would save £6bn.

• Increasing the cost of the NHS surcharge, the fee paid by non-UK residents when they get a visa to stay in the UK. This would rise form £1,035 to £2,718 a year, which Reform UK says would save £5bn.

Yesterday the Home Office triggered outrage by suggesting that the government might remove jewellery from asylum seekers to help compensate for what they cost the taxpayer. According to Politico, one Reform official described this as “vindictive”. But the ‘jewellery’ plan (which does not even mention jewellery at all – that story only emerged from a hypothetical comment in an interview) would probably only raise paltry sums. Farage is proposing a huge fiscal rethink that would appropriate billions earmarked for people who aren’t British.

With nationalism an increasingly powerful force in politics, Farage is clearly calculating that this will go down well with voters.

In advance of the Reform press conference, Labour has issued a press notice criticising the proposals. But it does not refer to aid spending, or the NHS surcharge. Instead it points out that removing benefits from EU nationals would be a breach of the post-Brexit trade deal, which potentially could mean a trade war with Europe. A Labour party spokesperson said:

Nigel Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up, and he’d leave British taxpayers footing a hefty bill.

Farage is happy to slap British shoppers with higher prices at the checkouts by risking a trade war with Europe. He’d betray working people and hammer British businesses who want to trade with the EU.

Farage seems to think that the threat of trade retaliation from the EU is just a bluff, but he will explain more at his press conference. It is all a bit reminiscent of Brexit, when leavers were accused of having a rosy view of quite how strong their leverage would be in talks with Brussels.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

10am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Zia Yusuf, the party’s head of policy, hold a press conference.

10am: Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, hold a press conference.

11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 12.30pm: MPs debate the Northern Ireland Troubles bill at second reading.

Afternoon: Keir Starmer flies to Berlin, where he is having dinner with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

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