What will life be like under Reform?

[Easipeelerie]

I have accepted the likelihood of the next government being Reform. I don’t think the government after that will necessarily be Reform. But in the 4 Reform years, what do people think life will be like for the different groups in our country? Will we see very immediate changes?

Since when did the 700,000 workers earning between £100k and £125k amount to 10% of the workforce? The top 4% are those earning over £100k. The brain drain is hugely exaggerated on MN and the traffic is in both direction.

The United Kingdom is witnessing an unprecedented rise in immigration from the United States. In the twelve months leading to March 2025, more than 6,600 US citizens applied for UK residency or nationality. This is the highest figure since records began in 2004

Around 30% less income tax. Quite a difference.

I would prefer a different option. Scrap the personal allowance entirely; but bring in a 10% tax up to the minimum full time wage threshold.

it’s important that everyone who has an income makes a contribution. Especially those triple locked pensioners.

The GINI coefficient is falling in the UK which shows the gap between rich and poor is narrowing.

I agree though, high earners are getting rinsed in tax and pay growth.

You mean those pensioners who have been making a contribution all their lives? Those who started making a contribution when they were 15 or 16 and will continue to do so until their last breath - those pensioners? The pensioners who paid 33% tax and 9% NI when they started work?

Yes the pensioners who have had money pour over them for the last 20 years.

Where does all the money go?

wheredoesitallgo.org

How does that address my point? Obviously the amount will increase with inflation and the boomer generation reaching state pension age. The number paying tax has risen disproportionately.

https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/Number-of-pensioners-paying-income-tax-continues-to-soar.php

Your point is incorrect. The current tax generation pays for the next. So all current pensioner contributions paid for the greatest generation. Boomers rely on Gen X and Gen X rely on GenZ/Millennials.

if you haven’t been keeping up with wealth distributions, you will discover that boomer pensioners have most of the wealth and money.

Oh and the boomer generation took everything and sold everything. Free University - gone. Council homes - sold off. Final salary pensions - gone. North Sea Oil profits - gone. UK critical national infrastructure - sold. Pension age (future generations) raised. EU membership - gone.

… and getting back on topic.

Pensioners will vote in Farage.

Thank God the IMF technocrats are only a phone-call away.

The LSE report said that very few very wealthy people would leave with a wealth tax because there is a stigma to leaving for tax purposes. There should be a stigma-So rich but unwilling to help others

Approximately 11,000 millionaires left the UK in 2024. The estimate for 2025 is 16,500.

Even Tony Blair advised against taxing the wealthy more.

boomer pensioners have most of the wealth and money.

In which case they pay the most tax. 🤷‍♀️

I think you’ll find it was governments and institutions who removed those things.

University education - Blair
Council houses - Thatcher
Final salary pensions - various employers, most current pensioners haven’t got them
North Sea oil profits - Thatcher
Privatisation - Thatcher
Pension age - Major and Cameron, affecting current pensioners, some with virtually no notice

Nothing to do with me guv.

Oh and the boomer generation took everything and sold everything. Free University - gone. Council homes - sold off. Final salary pensions - gone. North Sea Oil profits - gone. UK critical national infrastructure - sold. Pension age (future generations) raised. EU membership - gone

University was not free when I attended from 1983 to 1986. Grants were means tested. Tuition costs were paid by the local education authority. Basic rate of tax was 33% compared to today’s 20%.

More significantly, the number of students in the 80s was about 14% of the adult population. Today, it’s almost 40%.

Tony Blair’s desire for 50% of the UKs young people to go to University did no favours for students. A degree certificate used to be worthwhile. Now they are common.

Several of my aunts and uncles bought their council houses after living in them for many years. The rent they paid before buying was more than the cost of the house several times over.

Pension age should have increased long ago to reflect an ageing population, but governments were afraid to act until it was too late.

Well it wasn’t. I didn’t even vote for the governments that did those things.

@PinkFruitbat
You are correct to say there income inequality is not rising sharply at the moment but there is a large gap between rich and poor in the UK.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the period April 2020–March 2022, the wealthiest 1% of households hold 10% of all household wealth in Great Britain.
That 10% share by the top 1% is about equal to the share held by the bottom 50% of households combined — illustrating how wealth is heavily skewed.

ifs.org.uk/living-standards-poverty-and-inequality-uk

The IFS report says this:
The very richest households remain significantly richer than average households, and wealth and income remain concentrated at the top.
A small fraction at the top — likely a few percent — hold a disproportionately large share of total wealth.
Even just the top 1% own a similar share of total wealth as the entire bottom half of households combined. Office for National Statistics+1
The rest of the population (the 95–99% below the top 5%) share the remaining 60–70% or so — but within that “rest,” wealth is also quite unevenly spread (middle Vs lower income/asset households).

On the Patriotic Millionaires website it says “Tax wealth, not work. We’re proud to pay and here to stay.” Patriotic Millionaires UK+1
In a 2025 statement, a member said the new government should act to address “raging economic inequality … to build a more sustainable and just nation … for all people, not just the super-rich.”

There is a need for more philanthropy in the UK.

Rich Americans does this well, not so much the British.

Especially those triple locked pensioners.

Why are pensioners singled out? Do people not realise they will be a pensioner one day?

Removal of inflation and standard-of-living increases (double lock) is the only politically acceptable way that the state pension can become effectively means-tested. People would rightly be up in arms about the loss of the pension they feel they've paid in for their whole lives if it was done openly.

But...

After 30 years of 4% inflation, your state pension will only be worth £3.7k in real terms. £71 per week.

If you're currently 30, then be aware that after 50 years of 4% inflation, your state pension will only be worth £1.7k per year in real terms!! £32 per week in real terms. Not really a pension, is it?

If inflation-linking goes, it's the end of the state pension within a generation.

All that would remain would be means-tested benefits, which continue past retirement age. Still funded by our lifetime taxes, which we get even less of back.

Now, who do you think would want that?

We bloody won’t!

I’m 20 years away from state pension age. My personal view is that by then it will be means tested and I won’t receive anything as I have my own private provisions.

Administratively a lot worse.

I think an initial hideous period of about 5 years as lifelong benefit claimants ‘adjust’ to having their payments removed, followed by higher rates of employments and a smaller welfare state.

Much less immigration and a more hostile environment for existing immigrants.

A slower, slightly more old fashioned way of British life. Which appeals to many.

If anyone genuinely believes a Reform government will make things better for this country, I have a garden bridge to sell you. The only ones that will do well will be the already rich and big conglomerates.

Farage and his ilk have pulled up the drawbridge to make leaving so much more difficult and next step is for us serfs to work harder to make him and his mates (including a lot in America and Russia) better off.

Reform wont win, they have just 27% of popular support (YouGov December 25) they may be the largest party but not enough to form a Government & anyone who goes into coalition with them, as a junior partner, will be finished for many years, look at the LDs.

Despite everything Labour are still 2nd, just 8pts behind.

If Reform cannot get significant support now, they never will.

Plus polling doesn't count the 16/17yo's who will be able to vote in 2029, who knows how a current 13yo will vote?

You have accepted that the government are going to steal your pension - worth £250k - which they have promised you through your whole working life?

Why have you accepted that?

If we refuse pension means-testing (which I think would be political unacceptable) - and also crucially, refuse removal of inflation-linking - they won't be able to steal that money.

The thing to be wary of is the theft by stealth - so keep telling people about the consequences of removal of the triple-lock. We need to stop them stealing it by stealth simply because people don't think it through.

Too bloody right we won’t.