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?

@fairyring25 decreasing the NMW for younger people is insane when the cost of living is sky high and not improving. It's also pandering to business instead of serving the people of the UK.

The right always comes up with the same stuff: poor people must have money taken away from them to motivate them, the rich must be given more money to motivate them. Trickle down economics have been shown not to work, so why are we still pushing a failed ideology?

Reform are only interested in enriching themselves and their paymasters - who do not have British interests at heart.

Perhaps read the poem ‘First They Came’ and reconsider.

@pointythings
@TopPocketFind
Farage discussed reducing the mimimum wage for 18-20 year olds so more employers are willing to employ them.
Most of this age group live at home so they don't need to earn that much. 15% of this age group is also unemployed.
Surely it is better to have some employment at a slightly lower wage than none at all?

We need to reduce immigration and make sure British young people can find employment.

I do love posts that credit the Tories for Labour policies.... when it suits!

The policies that have reduced migration have happened under a Labour Govt, not a Tory one.

The Tories had several years to cut migration but chose not too.

The spike in migration under Blair was around 300k, under Bojo and Sunak, it was in the millions.

imho taking people and then allowing in large numbers of dependents is and was total bonkers, this never really happened under EU migration, whole areas/towns have been changed forever due to influxes of SE Asia and Africans, culturally very different, the Tories did this, no one else and your excuses don't change the facts

A majority of under 25s also live at home.

Shall we apply your policy of lowering wages to reduce unemployment to all areas of employment? if not, why not? why should the young be expected to do the same work as a 21 or 22yo but get substantially lower pay?

Unfortunately, its the lower wage/lower skilled areas that will be hit hardest by AI/Automation and its only by this that the UK will increase productivity, which we lag most economies on.

Brexit was the most expensive divorce in history, I think it's time to consider rejoining and joining the EURO.

It shouldn't be a vote but a political choice and put a nail into the coffin of populism. It's about making choices that are for the greater good and not nodding to public opinion.

As Kenneth Clarke put it last month, when politicians get back to sensible policies rather than chasing public opinion, is the day we start getting this country back on track.

The best way to tackle this would be back in the EU and move to restricting social media and in some cases banning those outlets that fail to fall in line. People should return to balanced outlets and actually reading....and then making their own judgement.

This country needs to wake up fast otherwise it's over for the British. You'll be consumed by a more powerful country through political meddling.

There's obviously a delay between policy change and measurable impact

Sunak brought in new rules in 2024 to cut legal migration, including barring international students from bringing in family members and increasing the salary threshold for skilled worker visas. That's what brought immigration down over the last 18 months.

What immigration policies have Labour brought in, that you think have changed things? Not talked about: brought in.

The only thing Labour have done is drive young people away from the UK - the productive ones anyway. Between April 2024 and March 2025, 174,000 British nationals aged between 16-34 emigrated from the UK and 63,000 British nationals in that age group moved back to the UK, giving a net loss of 111,000. young Brits.

That's not to their credit.

Is that Reform's policy, sending migrants back and offer jobs to UK people for lower wages and less rights?

And then posters complain about young people leaving?

And if they don't live at home? Either way it's appalling that some people think it's OK to pay an adult less than the going rate for the job because of their age. Your 19yo barista could have been doing the job since 16 and be supremely excellent at it - and yet the 35 yo who walks in with 0 experience gets more money? Insane.

And if employers can't afford to pay their people the most minimum of wages, they deserve to go out of business.

Labour came in on a new manifesto, anything that happens is down to them (when it suits) but what you want is good things that happen = Tory policies, Bad things = Labour policies.

Younger people leaving the UK? even your own post states this happened months BEFORE Labour got in, the decision to leave the UK and then do it, will be months in the planning, if not years.... so done due to Tory policies?

The biggest driver for people leaving the UK has been Brexit, a Tory policy but one you think may well work out for the UK.

• The gross outflow of British nationals reached a peak of 259,000 in the year to September 2024, the largest numerical outflow since data collection began in 1964

• Post-Brexit Context: The 2016 EU referendum and the subsequent end of free movement have impacted migration patterns. EU net migration has been negative since 2022, with more EU citizens leaving the UK than arriving, which includes some naturalised Britons returning to their home countries

Largest numbers leaving peaked before and just after Lab got into power, so driven by Tory policies... as you said...

There's obviously a delay between policy change and measurable impact

And immigrants taking jobs is an age old trope.

The right always comes up with the same stuff: poor people must have money taken away from them to motivate them, the rich must be given more money to motivate them.

You need to think a bit more deeply and clearly.

poor people must have money taken away from them
Wrong. They're not having money taken from them. They're working in a job which creates value... but less than NMW amount of value.

Employers must be allowed to offer the salary which matches the productivity generated. When the government sets a minimum, then you end up with distortions: the person's work doesn't create NMW worth of value, so the company would lose money if they employ them at NMW... so they don't. But the employment would have created a smaller amount of value. From that value, the employee would have got a salary (instead of being subsidised by other people from the value their work creates) the company would have made a profit, and the government would have got their cut of tax. If you distort the market with too high NMW and the person doesn't work - so the value isn't created - everyone loses.

the rich must be given more money to motivate them.
Wrong again. They're not being given anything, they're being permitted to keep a larger amount of the value they create, so that it's worth it to them to do the job that creates that value instead of something easier but less valuable (Or the same job - creating the same value - in another country whose government takes less. Leaving the UK with none of that value)

It's completely consistent. You just need to think clearly about what a job is: which is a way of creating value and recieving part of that value (allowing for the other parties who also enable the value creation to have their share too)

It has absolutely nothing to do with trickle down economics.

And nothing to do with treating 'rich' and 'poor' differently

It's about not fucking up the creation of value. (the economic term is market distortion)

As a country we do need to maximise the value created by everyone because what we can consume as a country = all the value we create + the value other countries create and we borrow (which we will need to create ourselves later without consuming in order to pay it back ).

As is "we neeeeed immigrants to do the unskilled jobs"... when we clearly don't given that we have 20% youth unemployment.

@pointythings

Your comment "And if employers can't afford to pay their people the most minimum of wages, they deserve to go out of business," makes no sense. Why would you want employers to go out of business. Then even more people would be unemployed.

And what if that business is a one-to-one home care for older people? Should they go out of business if they can't afford to employ staff? Some private companies that offer one-to-one home care for the council have fixed payment contracts with the council. Therefore, if they have to pay more money in NI and a higher minimum wage to staff, then they can't even raise prices for their clients to make up the difference. If they can't make a profit, they will just go out of business. So more people unemployed, less providers for home care etc. Noone benefits.

I didn't say unskilled jobs

Do you want your children to do these 'unskilled' jobs for a low minimum wage? Or a better question, do your children want to do these jobs?

poor people must have money taken away from them

Wrong. They're not having money taken from them. They're working in a job which creates value... but less than NMW amount of value

Who sets that value? the wealthy.
No one has so far answered why a 20yo should get substantially less than a 21yo doing exactly the same role and being equally productive.

Employers must be allowed to offer the salary which matches the productivity generated. When the government sets a minimum, then you end up with distortions: the person's work doesn't create NMW worth of value, so the company would lose money if they employ them at NMW... so they don't. But the employment would have created a smaller amount of value. From that value, the employee would have got a salary (instead of being subsidised by other people from the value their work creates) the company would have made a profit, and the government would have got their cut of tax. If you distort the market with too high NMW and the person doesn't work - so the value isn't created - everyone loses

Why do you think we needed a NMW in the first place? opposed tooth n nail by the right, for exactly the same reasons as you're giving, incidentally, anything that favours the least well off, is always opposed by the 'right.... see also NHS, Open Uni, school leaving age increased, worker rights, HS at Work act, even rent reforms

Employers, if they could, would offer very little at all, whilst expecting their employees to claim benefits other tax payers fund.

One only has to look at the supermarkets to see this, people worked to the bone, who get paid the NMW or just above, whilst the employer takes huge profit (forget the margin, its still billions & a monopoly, all pretty much charge exactly the same across a basket of goods) for themselves, wages far too low to live on, even with FT and extra hours.

All of that only applies if you believe in pure 100% unregulated capitalism. I don't. Other models for running a society are available. And no, I'm not talking about North Korea. Your diatribe is no better than just saying 'greed is good'.

How does anyone benefit if people are paid so little that they cannot afford the basics of food and housing? We are already in the situation where the government (that is, taxpayers) subsidise the low paid (that is, their employers). Why should my money be used as a subsidy for businesses?

We can bicker endlessly about whether we would be better off if we hadn’t Brexited or not. People can get models to say anything they want with slight tweaks to inputs. I think it is a rabbit hole.

I voted to remain because I thought it would be costly and disruptive to exit. I would now vote to stay put because I also think it would be costly and disruptive to reenter.

Being in or out of Brexit is less important than our own choices. Things we should address:

1. Cost of energy (production/distribution)
2. Tax reform and simplification
3. Regulations on getting anything done at all (we have ground ourselves to a halt)
4. Social cohesion (realistic levels of immigration and a move towards integration)

I believe our future depends upon addressing these issues, let’s not get distracted with Brexit round-2!

One only has to look at the supermarkets to see this, people worked to the bone, who get paid the NMW or just above, whilst the employer takes huge profit (forget the margin, its still billions & a monopoly, all pretty much charge exactly the same across a basket of goods) for themselves, wages far too low to live on, even with FT and extra hours.

Why forget turnover? Why ignore that it takes money to run the supermarket, and that investment has to come from somewhere?

You're clearly aware that supermarkets actially run on very, very low margin. And that even if you could somehow persuade your pension fund to invest your money there for zero return(with the consequences for your pension) and spread that between the hundreds of thousands of employees it would make negligible difference to their pay

Would you rather the supermarkets stopped trading - since their profit isn't enough to pay more - even though people would really like to buy their food from somewhere?

Your diatribe is no better than just saying 'greed is good'.

Oh don't be ridiculous.

I'm saying that reality matters.

And you need to think about what will actually happen when you make policy.

If you don't understand economics, you will never understand politics.

This isn't about reality. This is about the choices a country makes about how it runs its economy. You talk as if the capitalist model is the only one that leads to a functioning society. Once you've taken that dogma on board, everything flows logically from that.

But there are other models. Economics isn't just one thing, and economists aren's a monolithic bloc of flag waving supporters of the UK way.

Perhaps you are the one who needs to open their mind a little.

Supermarket profits have increased very substantially since the mid 2010's approx 200m 2017, 1.3bn 2018... 3.2bn in 2024/25 UP 11% on the year before.

The % of anyone's pension invested in supermarkets would be v small & i'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to make money, thats clearly ridiculous but they make this off by charging evermore and paying themselves obscene amounts of money.
We all need food and fuel, its not exactly a high risk business model is it?

Have you not noticed, that as we switched from brands to own brand cheaper items, the supermarkets just hiked those prices far more in comparison, yet the cost of product must be equal... why did they do that? why have fuel per litre margins trebled, as more independent stations have closed?

As is often said, we haven't a Cost of Living crisis but a Cost of Greed crisis....

Many European countries regulate supermarkets and basic foods far more than we do.

Surely it’s about reality. How can you make good choices if you are deluded?

But I am not deluded. I have a different take on economic matters. As I have said before, not all economists agree that the current way we do things in the UK is what is best. There isn't one single right way of managing an economy. If you believe there is, then that is delusional.