What I would like to ask Reform supporters what are the specific Reform policies they support?

[CurlewKate]

Just that really. I am a Labour voter, and I know what Labour policies I support. I think I know what Conservative and Lib Dem policies their supporters like. I don't know about Reform.

@Alexandra2001

It’s still not taxing working people.

If increasing the tax burden on employers results in higher unemployment, that’s the ultimate tax on those who became unemployed.

It’s estimated that unemployment has increased by about 300,000 since Labour came into power. Source FullFact. Direct benefits cost about £12K per year and loss of tax and NI take is about £8K per year. So, an increase in unemployment costs the UK government about £6 billion per year in direct costs alone.

Then there’s the knock on effect of reduced spending on leisure activities such as; bars, restaurants, gym, holiday, etc. The less the disposable income that is around, the more the hospitality and leisure industry will suffer.

It’s estimated that COVID cost the UK hospitality sector £115 billion over two years.

@RedTagAlan

For energy, small modular nuclear power plants would be my choice. They can produce power 24 hours per day as they don’t depend on the weather.

Back to Restore.
I’ve been following Rupert Lowe for some time. Not so much for his politics, which can err on the rather extreme, but because he intrigues me.
His party has been focussed on the Great Yarmouth area, and won (I think) all seats in the recent local elections. That are is in great need to hope, having suffered severe decline for many years. He indicates he will now start to expand.
Other than that he spend much parliamentary time in committee holding people to account. Yesterday he posted about HMRC and tax collection. It’s all available on Facebook Reels, X etc. I honest believe he’s asking the right kind of questions, just the sort we’d ask ourselves, but with the experience of being a successful businessman.
Would I vote for him? I honestly don’t know. But I do know he fills a purpose - even though he earns nothing for it, donating each MP payment to a different Great Yarmouth charity each month.

Thats quite a confusing post, on one hand you blame Labour for increased costs on employers, yet then go one to say that Covid has cost the hospitality industry £115billion, many times more than Reeves added to their bills.

The numbers IN employment has risen, as more economically inactive people have gone back to work... apparently, its 400,000 more than in July 2024.

Btw i'm not suggesting NI hasn't cost jobs, it has but on the other hand, how would the Govt pay for all the unfunded costs it inherited?

You still haven't suggested how you would (realistically) pay for the unfreezing of tax thresholds.

Lowe wants simplified taxation, yes agreed its far too complex.
He also want much lower tax but as always, can never say what he would cut to be able to do this.

Liz Truss tried this approach and came to close to wrecking DC pensions and trebled Govt borrowing costs.

He also campaigned for Brexit, which has led to a smaller economy.

And how much does a nuke power plant cost to build ?

$14 to 30 billion. Lets split the difference. Say $22 billion for 300MW. We use about 14 GW peak, So we would need 46 of those power stations. That would cost about $1 trillion.

that’s the ultimate tax on those who became unemployed.

ie not working people.

@blossomtoes

The greater the number of people who are unemployed, the greater the burden on those who are working to cover the cost of;

Unemployment benefits
Lost tax and NI revenue
Reduced tax take from industries that survive from people having a disposable income.

ie higher taxes or reduced spending on services or increased borrowing.

@RedTagAlan

To achieve net zero by 2050 is estimated to cost between 1.4 and 7.6 trillion. Source:

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/paying-net-zero

A large range. So, apply your split the difference approach gives a figure of £4.5 trillion. That’s four times more than your estimate for nuclear.

I’m not entering the Brexit argument. Too many have solidified views connected to their Brexit vote.
I don’t think he has any dreams of getting absolute power. I think he wants to multiply that common sense viewpoint to challenge some of the established two party fixed approach.

@EEexpat, you really must stop trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs. I really don’t need an idiots’ guide to politics/economics in every reply to me, kind as it is.

Fair enough.

You missed this bit from that report though :" Put another way, the costs of failing to bring climate change under control would be much larger than those associated with decarbonisation. "

My ciggie packet sums was for building nuke power stations alone. We should extrapolate it to 2050 then to do the sums.

Has your preferred political party done that ?

Come on - even Tommeh is questioning if Lowe is too racist. That grooming gang enquiry is a disgrace, and is just re-raping the victims in his ‘cause’.

I don’t know what he wants except a platform - a dig at those who didn’t want him in their parties - oh and backing from the richest guy on the planet. I’m sure he’d be fine to be PM - and spout his outdated, obnoxious rubbish but hopefully no great numbers will buy into him.

You do you.
And whilst your doing it, try and remember that a reasonable presentation of your political leaning will always progress a discussion. Rudeness does nothing of the sort.

Is it not a case that it should be hoped that Restore get a following ? Because that will split the Reform vote.

Oh yeah - I’m good with it splitting the vote tbh - scary to know who walks amongst us though too - bit of dissonance in my head ha!

Thanks - I will do me.

I wasn’t actually presenting my political leaning for debate - I was debating yours - and Restore is so completely dire in terms of values that there is no reasonable ground left to debate upon and they need to be pointed out each and every time he is mentioned.

To progress debate on Restore then it’s these questions on values, particularly the extreme ethno nationalism, that need to be answered first.

And thank you. That was reasonable and not rude.

@CurlewKate , thank you; your question prompted me to take a look at what the Reform UK’s policy’s are and having read them I agree with every single one. Here they are:-
https://www.reformparty.uk/policies#policies-section
Is there anything in there that you disagree with?

On small to medium businesses having a £100k corporation tax free amount to kickstart these businesses and encourage them to grow and employ more staff.
Scrap vat for businesses under £150k. This would be less paper work for the smaller business and consumers would save too.
Raise personal tax thresholds to encourage work. If people keep more of their earnings they work more and less likely to go on benefits.
On health keep NHS free at point of delivery but contract out some bits to private providers to cut waiting lists. Make immigrants here legally pay more to access NHS or allow them to get private health insurance and not use NHS.
Get rid of very high paid EDI czars in NHS and use money to get more nurses.

Stop any overseas students bringing in any dependent.
Do not allow any migrants here legally or otherwise to claim any benefits of or 5 years including child benefit. A recent government study found low paid migrants stay longer and claim more benefits.
Any illegal immigrants arriving on a boat send straight back across the channel.
Get out of ECHR to allow that to happen and to stop Brussels dictating who we have in UK. Transfer the bits we want into a UK bill of rights protecting the rights we want to keep.
Never accept any immigrants with criminal records especially sexual crimes. We have enough criminals in UK already without accepting more. If an immigrant commits a crime serious enough for prison report them.

Keep the triple lock. A recent survey found 2/3 of adults in UK want it to stay.

Scrap inheritance tax above 2 million.
Reverse tax against farmers.
Allow all landlords to claim interest back on mortgage rates do they don't need to pass on higher rent to tenant. At the moment on incorporated landlords can claim I retest back. Reverse 2 percent additional tax on landlords.
Scrap net zero and open up drilling for oil and gas. Get rid of ULEZ type schemes because people just do more miles driving around them so more pollution.

I know little about tax. I am just a layperson on such things.

Your first paragraph, quote :

"On small to medium businesses having a £100k corporation tax free amount to kickstart these businesses and encourage them to grow and employ more staff.
Scrap vat for businesses under £150k. This would be less paper work for the smaller business and consumers would save too."

I looked up what tax is now. It's 19% on profits up to 50k, then between 50 to 250k it increases to 25%.

That is all on profits. So no profit means no corporation tax.

So how does doing away with this tax encourage more employment ? Surely the reverse is the case, certainly with a small business.

Because tax is only on profit. So a small company could employ people to increase turnover, and with the money going on staff profit can be kept down.

As I said, just a layperson. But I recall something, as an example, that for big companies, higher tax increases their R&D spend, Because they would rather spend on that than pay tax.

Does similar not apply to small business ? That if they make 100k profit say, they reduce their tax by investment in machines or people ?

And that spend goes into the economy. But if you lower tax, does that not potentially remove money from the economy ?

Genuine question. I just don't see how that tax change gives the result you claim.

I have a question. From the Scotland page of that Reform Manifesto you posted, quote:

"By reforming and reducing the SNP’s onerous tax regime, Reform will ensure that aspiration and success are never again punished in Scotland. Every 1% of economic growth delivers £8bn of cumulative additional tax revenues over 10 years. By reducing the tax burden on hard-working Scots, they will repay us all by generating higher tax revenues"

What does that bolded part mean ?

Who do folk in Scotland need to repay ?

And when it says repay, does that mean tax revenue will be taken away from Scotland to repay " us all". whoever that is. And why does it appear reform think Scottish taxpayers owe them ?

That sounds awful like some sort of colonial era thing really.

Ok - tax has been questioned- I probably know most about immigration.

No dependents on student visas - you like Labour policy then - rules are a dependent can only be considered if you are doing a PhD.

Immigrants pay between around £775- £1000 per year currently to access our NHS - until they get ILR, which is looking to now take longer so for a very long time. Illegals immigrants can only access angel care, and no other services from the NHS.

All visas have a ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ condition- this would continue until they had ILR, see above. They can apply to have this lifted if they can prove they are destitute.

The child benefit applies as above to the child here on a visa, however they could well have a British citizen child, who is entitled to child benefit - or are we distinguishing even further on what counts as British.

Immigrants arriving on boats - only way to claim asylum is basically to enter by a covert manner and claim at port. Once they have claimed they are not illegal. Some of asylum seekers rights are enshrined in U.K. case law as well as international UNHCR. Leaving the ECHR won’t change the laws around asylum claimants, although it will remove an awful lot of rights from everyone, and personally I wouldn’t rely on a Reform Bill of Rights.

You can’t just send migrants ‘back across the channel’ - they aren’t French citizens and France won’t take them - lots of laws around this, not just ECHR.

Leaving the ECHR will throw the Good Friday Agreement into chaos - how will that be resolved?

Immigrants are refused on the basis of criminality attracting certain sentences - there is more freely available information on gov.uk as to how that works.

Not really sure what ‘reporting immigrants for crimes’ even means - it sounds like 1930s Germany to me tbh.

So, as you can see Reform will be either changing nothing, alongside causing a lot of disruption to everyone in a variety of ways. So what is preferable in these policies delivered by Reform?

Tbh it just sounds like populist drivel with a side dish of dog whistle to me.

Many people would like a simplified tax system, however, a year or so ago, a tax expert pointed out why Govts say they'd like to do this but never do....

.... because it takes too much time, years.. by which time, the next GE comes along and potentially a new party gets the credit.

Low taxation without growth and/or public sector cuts, always is a disaster.

Lowe is offering nothing that is "common sense"

My posts above about tax that I think you reference. I know next to nowt about tax.

But it appears you know about immigration. I have a friend going through this just now, legal immigration for their non EU spouse. It is not easy, nor is it cheap.

Much of that is down to May. She went for the low hanging fruit and went for the spouse rules. Putting return to the UK well out of reach for many.

Back to the tax. I see words that say if we do this, that will happen. But I don't see what the mechanism is. Because if it was as simple and automatic as Reform claim, then why has this or former governments not done it ?

@RedTagAlan , I’m not a Reform UK spokesperson so I can only tell you how I read that which is:-
Reform will reduce the tax burden on Scottish people which will boost the Scottish economy and in turn produce a bigger tax take. More money in the Scottish coffers will be good news for everyone as more money going to the treasury in general will be. I think when they say ‘repay’ they mean it as that is how the Scottish people will respond.
I suggest if it is of a concern to you that you email them and ask for clarification.

You did say, quote "your question prompted me to take a look at what the Reform UK’s policy’s are and having read them I agree with every single one. Here they are:-"

So you agree with every single one of them, but can't explain them ?

Because also in the Reform Scotland pages, we get this on page 1:

"SCOTLAND’S FUTURE

Reform UK will make Scotland the most successful part of the UK"

Do you agree with this if you are not living in Scotland. Because if so, that means you are happy for Reform to make Scotland better than England, Wales and NI. Personally, I don't see how they can do that if Scotland is "repaying".