Reform’s Danny Kruger criticises UK’s ‘totally unregulated sexual economy’

[SerendipityJane]

Reform’s Danny Kruger criticises UK’s ‘totally unregulated sexual economy’
Former Conservative laments divorce changes and says Reform UK will pursue policies to boost birthrate

The UK is “suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy”, the Reform MP Danny Kruger has said, and he indicated he expected the party to have a “limited but important role” in resetting sexual culture.

Kruger said Reform UK had a “pronatalist ambition” and would seek policies to encourage people to have more children, including exploring changes to the tax system to make payments based on households rather than individuals.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/24/reform-danny-kruger-uk-totally-unregulated-sexual-economy

Of course, moving taxation to individuals rather than households was the policy gift of Margaret Thatcher. For families with children moving to the household as a unit of taxation (as other European countries do) would relieve some of the financial pressures on them, and enable women who don't want to work full time (or even part-time) to be more able to do so.

I know Matt Goodwin floated the idea that people without children should be taxed more, it was part of a report he was quoting, I can't remember who wrote the report but it was a man. I'm not sure having a child just so you get taxed less is a winning formula, especially for the child.

So how do you prove whether or not a man has fathered any children? You can't. So basically it would be a tax on childless women, and blatant sex discrimination.

And if you can’t, rather than don’t want to have children, you should pay more tax? Can’t see that going well.

Oh God, don’t give them ideas. Incels already have this weird masochistic fantasy that loads of happily married men are really cucks. You know that’s who Reform is appealing to!

There are moments you know when I think men can't win and no wonder some might not bother trying. On the one hand they will get it from those who say they lack commitment to their children and the mothers of those children, and should step up. And the next they are unreformed cavemen and should back off and let women and their mothers raise the children the fathered.

Well, for years the stereotype has been that women, particularly as they hit their thirties were desperate for babies and would want to "trap" a man. All the stereotypes about women in their thirties being desperate etc (and unpleasant memes about them being left on the shelf). I think if you surveyed women, most of the ones that wanted children still want to be married/in a long-term relationship with the father. What's changed is the number of women presumably happy to go it alone if that doesn't work out with some planning that from the outset.

I don't think Iwantto retire was saying men were unreformed for wanting a part in raising their own children. It's more that she was saying there was resentment from men that women as a general group don't need men as much. So imaginary Barry isn't upset because he fathered children with Lisa and now she says he can't see them. He's upset because he absorbed a lot of memes about how all the women who rejected men like him in their twenties would come to regret it in their thirties when it would be too late. But it turns out they don't. Its about a perceived power shift not a man being told his own children don't need him.

I don't agree that men are redundant. I think there are enough women wanting to have children with decent men that decent men will be able to find someone. (And also good fathers are good for children). But I think you are mischaracterising the argument the other poster was making.

Most, yes, but some straight women (and men) clearly don't want kids. And a lot of lesbians and some gay men do.

If Mat Godwin wants to point the finger at anyone for having casual sex he needs to point it at his own generation. The boomers had more sex than generation Z who are actually more thoughtful about partners and ethics (they also get criticised for this of course.) "Hookup culture" was largely a response to the introduction of the smartphone and the boom in dating apps and it's already started to die of.

What he is referring to really is the common online trope that 20% of the men are "getting" 80% of the women leaving the rest with none. This then tips into some quite unpleasant tropes about sexually promiscuous women sleeping with the bad boys in their twenties and then either being left single mothers or alone and full of regrets in their 30s as their eggs either and die. Whilst if they had only picked the (self insert) nice guy when young and hot all would have been well.
It's.not true. And it's based more on male insecurities (everyone else is getting sex except them; women are being slutty with other men when they should be slutty with them) than reality. It comes from a place of insecurity or innexperience rather than malice generally. But some men who should know better have really fallen for the pseudo-scientific nonsense. And Godwin is one of them. (Actually I don't know if it's pseudo-science or pseudo-economics since lot of it's based on a weird sort of economic theory/buzzwords that don't really fit with the real world).

I see what you mean & agree mainly.

Otoh re this : 'using access to sex as the price of commitment to a woman and supporting her children?'

• isn't it rather depressing as that essentially implies men need sex as a bribe to commit and won't want a relationship if they can get sex elsewhere?

Good point, the problem is arguably that Gen Z are having issues having sex and relationships, not that they're having too much..

I think I might very discussed this with you earlier re Mary Harrington : it's tilting at Boomer & Millenial etc windmills, not really responding to actual Gen Z behaviour.

I think marriage IS in the best interests of men though. Men who sow their wild oats all their life tend to end up lonely in old age, especially as men tend to rely on wives for a social circle esp as they get older. Studies show married men are happier than single men and do better at work.

We have an aging popoulation. Like most of Europe. People need to have more kids.

People have different opinions. I don't think most people on FWR think mem should back off as pp said, I certainly don't

Why doesn't he?

Yes, even porn isn't really a symptom of men being single. Since married men also look at porn. In fact, if we are to accept their argument, men are primed to "sow their wild oats" and seek out novelty. So marrying early and having a wife to have sex with wouldn't reduce that need. While I'm happy to have a discussion on the harms of porn I don't see how you could ban it. And very noticeably neither Goodwin or any of the sexual economy guys seem to want to try either. They may well believe the problem is "unconstrained male sexuality" but all the solutions seem to involve constraining women. In the hope women will use their magic vaginas to restrain men. Or use their feminine wiles to baby trap them. Or something.

Then they can tell men that if they want. What they can't do is make it women's problem if men are (as has been claimed) biologically primed not to want a monogamous relations but would be happier in one. And they can't make men do what is best for them either.
Besides which many of the luminaries or Reform have had multiple children with multiple women so maybe the problem is men need better role models to look up to.

It boils down to deep resentment at women for "constraining mens sexuality".and criticism of them for failing to do so.

No we don't. The UK already struggles to provide food, water and shelter for the people we have.
As climate change makes the world less stable we need to be more secure in our supply chains, not less.
There is literally nothing Reform or anyone else could do to persuade women to have more babies. Money is not the only issue. The physical toll on the body, the interruption to careers and lives. None of the measures tried in other countries have worked.

It's weird they are so Islamaphobic yet so many of their policies scream Taliban to me!

These kinds of taxes are typically a tax break for people with children.

Yes, arguably it is, which is why I said the interests of men and women don't immediately align. On the face of it, the relative risks and advantages for men as opposed to women are unequal. Which is why we see male and female approaches to sexual behaviour tend to be different.

Ultimately there are lots of social benefits to men for intact families as well though, including economic benefit, happiness, not having your kids die of syphilis, or going that way yourself. But I think it's pretty clear that managing the male sex drive is more effective with the support of social institutions and norms.

A lot of women's experience of men is pretty much in that order.
Two people create a relationship, have a child in what the woman believes is a stable and mutually supportive relationship (married or not), only to discover later that the man has been playing away. He then abandons his family, contributes £28 a month and the occasional Saturday to "caring" for his children, preferably when he doesn't have a hangover and his team aren't playing at home. At which point the mother concludes that he is an irresponsible waste of space and should indeed, back off and let her raise her children decently, modelling loyalty, consideration, commitment and love.

Perhaps if a lot of men behaved with honesty and commitment, they would change the narrative, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

No one thinks it's the only issue, and tax breaks like this seem at best only sightly effective.

But research suggests that many women have fewer children than they would like, largely due to economic constraints.

But if you don't think a tax break like that would work anyway, what's your beef with it? No one is forcing people to have more kids - it's only going to have an effect if people do in fact want more children than they would have otherwise.

That's the experience of some women, sure. Many families have very committed fathers. Some families have mums that play away and fuck things up.

There are also segments of society where fathers not being involved has been very normalised. I am rather mystifies why anyone who thinks that is a negative thing would be keen to repudiate efforts to make that less socially acceptable or encourage more involvement.

Agree with this.

Re the physical toll, this has improved overall in Europe ofc but the UK has really bad maternity care, which must change.