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?

I wonder why?

So do I. Particularly when I look at the achievements of the Attlee and Blair governments.

Labour have made plenty of mistakes and their rhetoric around immigration is awful but they have done a lot of good things too.

Lifting the 2 child benefit cap, the workers right bill, raising the minimum wage, renters right bill.

Leftie nonsense, so be it

The problem is that demand for health care and public services are limitless but our ability to supply it is finite.

No it isn't.

Our ability to supply it depends on population numbers, age demographics, GDP, productivity, choices about tax policy etc. - all of which are variables just the same as demand is.

It's interesting how most western countries manage to find more money per capita for healthcare than we do. And yet people keep repeating the canard that the NHS is a bottomless pit and no amount of money would be enough.

My DD dept had a waiting list of 22 weeks for therapy, after a stroke, Reeves NI increases went towards more staff, just 3.... after which the waiting list is now 2 weeks.
Plus 3 people now have work.

For those people receiving this urgent care, the tax increases were well worth it.

The US has the highest per capita spend on healthcare, and is not a model anyone rational would want to emulate. I'm not wedded to the UK model by any means - the Norway model with a capped personal spend would be fine by me. However, Norway has more hospitals, more GPs, more nursing staff and they are far better paid than they are in the UK. Emulating any of the models used in developed Western countries that are not the US would cost the UK taxpayer more, not less.

Remember the disaster that was Liz Truss ? It'll be that for 5 years plus. Britain will be ruined.

So: much like Labour then?

Bugger.

Labour hasn't crashed the market

The Liz Truss spike in bond yields was fast, whereas Labour's harm has been slow and steady - but they've now reached higher bond yields than her.

All the more significant, since they also increased new borrowing: from £121.9 billion in the year to March 2024, up to £148.3 billion for the year ending March 2025... and still rising.

Public borrowing (new borrowing, not cumulative) is currently at the second-highest on record, driven by higher spending despite increased tax receipts.

So Labour have us paying high rate on ever-faster-increasing borrowing whilst damaging growth through increased taxation... because they can't stop the exponential growth of welfare spending.

Unemployment is up, with youth unemployment and inactivity particularly worrying.

And despite all these challenges (of their own naking - through ill-thought-out, ideological policy), Labour are still more concerned with punishing/getting their own back at people they don't like (WTF with the new attack on the countryside, banning drag hunting?!) than with actually improving Britain's future.

Reform may well do the same kind of thing as Labour - they are similarly populist and similarly don't have convincing policy for growth.

But their ideology is less intrinsically self-destructive than Labour's since at least their 'bad guys' aren't the exact group of people who drive growth and make the country function

The current government isn’t popularist.

Gilt yields are lower now than for over 8 months of 2023 & we have had no recession, unlike in 2023........ Truss almost trebled yields and caused the BoE to print 65 billion in emergency funds.....

Number of NEETs was raising throughout the Tories tenure, now heading downwards.

FTSE 100, 350/All Share substantially UP from July 23, helping pensions... £ strengthening against the Dollar and Euro.

Unemployment far lower than that reached in 2021/22 - i mention this because you say Labour face no external factors, so neither did the Tories.

Lloyds Business confidence survey up (December 2025) this is a real survey, looking at businesses they have relationships with.... rather than asking the Tory led Inst of Directors/CBI with their 1% of business representation.

Much of our increased borrowing is down to Hunt not funding known govt costs PO & Blood scandals, his NI cuts.

I don't see much mocking on this thread just facts about what will happen. Reform aren't saying any different, they opey say these things. They will remove workers rights (for the good of "growth"), they will remove the NHS (and introduce private health), they will reduce taxes for the wealthy (to incentives growth).
All of the above directly benefits Farage and his friends, that are paying him. They will make billions whilst the majority of people (especially the young) will have less money, opportunities, rights and decent public services.
Additionally they will work towards creating divisions in society, picking on the weak and easy to blame (immigrants, disabled, people on benefits, neurodiverse, gay etc). This divided and rule tactic has been used for millennia to keep the masses arguing between ourselves and them in power.
Lastly, they are working towards Russia's goal of weakening Europe. Putin has had links with Farage for decades. Russia is the original top dog at propaganda. They have been doing this shit for over a hundred years. The internet has been the most amazing propaganda machine and they have a far reach through Facebook/tiktok/twitter etc. All of those weird "nostalgic" posts about old Britian is Russian/Reform in action.
Reform are lots of things but stupid isn't one of them.

That's not what any of those graphs show, nor this article:
Reeves’s job taxes trigger biggest hiring slump in the G7

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d344db0e3d14be39

@zazazaaar I agree that Reform has worrying links to Russia.
I am also concerned that their ideas for increasing spending on defence, spending, police, NHS will not match there tax revenues if they also cut income tax, corporation tax etc. They are also highly unlikely to manage to raise £50 billion from "cutting wasteful spending" in government departments.
We need fiscal discipline-both reduced spending and keeping tax revenues the same for the moment (although these taxes could be collected in a better way-not via employer NI). We need to reduce the budget deficit.
However, I like Reform's idea of lifting the income tax threshold to £20,000. If they could recoup the money elsewhere-maybe through a flat rate of VAT. I also like the idea of a 2-strike rule for job offers and face-to-face assessments.
I think that the NHS does need reform. It isn't working. In fact, where I live it is pretty scary what happens in an emergency. My local hospital has not increased in size despite a 15% increase in the population in the last 10 years. It is like war zone in this hospital. My elderly neighbour recently had a stroke and wasn't see in time to receive important medication to reduce the impact. Older people are left lying on the floor for 6-8 hours after falls because the ambulance sees it as non-emergency care. Hospital children's A&E waiting times are increased by people whose children really aren't that unwell-these children apparently had a fever but were running around A&E delaying my son being seen for an actual injury. Maybe we should have a European social health insurance model. I would feel more confident that the money I am paying (even if it is more than I pay now) will help me rather than paying more into the NHS that is so inefficient.

No, because no one measures yields against inflation, the fact remains is NEET numbers are falling fast, gilt yields were higher in across most of 2023 and we had a recession in Q3 and Q4 of 2023.

Surveys show that around 40% of job adverts don't even exist... So how can these figures be trusted?

The NMW has been rising under successive Govts for many years now, whats the alternative? lower wages mean more UC claims = welfare spend goes up.

@fairyring25 A European Healthcare model, means the employer will pay more in tax, atm we have employers (and posters on here) claiming Reeves has wrecked the jobs market/economy and are responsible for the recent cold weather.

Employees will also have to pay more, so that will effect consumer spend too.

The time for NHS wholesale reform was decades ago, probably when we had significant growth and or NS oil revenues but these were given away in lower taxes... by the Tories.

The other problem with moving to a European style healthcare model which is insurance based is that most of Europe spends more per capita on health than the UK does. So are Reform going to invest in healthcare then? I doubt it, so your £20k tax threshold is a pipe dream.

I agree with you on both points, however I am not confident that Reform have the correct ethos or experience to do something as complex as remodelling the NHS.

I would love it if a party raised the threshold of tax to £20k as equally benefits everyone but the impact will be massive for those of us on lower incomes. Someone also needs to sort out the 50k tapered cut off for child benefit and childcare so its £100k per household.

Reform's ideology.

What is their ideology?

Who are Reform's 'bad guys'?

They're incredibly populist, with the 'bad guy' set up as wealth and business, who are supposedly causing all socety's ills with their 'greed' and their 'tax breaks' .Just look at the language they use!

And look at the populist policies which cause disproportionate harm to a small number of people in the 'hated' group - totally disproportionate to how little revenue is raised: private school VAT, farmers IHT, the mansion tax, the non dom measures (especially the completely unreasonable non-dom IHT changes), the trail hunting ban ffs.

The non-dom policies are at least projected to raise non-trivial amounts - if people don't leave, big 'if' - unlike the other policies which will raise practically nothing (possibly even cost money) but really, really hurt a small number of hated people.

That's exactly populism.

The issues you are upset about are rather elitist.