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

How will the UK handle the aging population though? How will the NHS cope? The pension system?

Ah I see what you mean, sorry: I agree.

Well I am not at all sure that I am mischarachterising it. I do agree that most women want to have a stable partnership to have kids. I'm not sure that many more want to have them alone than did in the past, tbh. I'm also not convinced that men resenting women for not needing them is a huge thing, although there is certainly a small group of incel types who think that way. If anything, I think a lot of men have come to resent women who would like to stop working as much to put more time into family life and women find that quite burdensom in some ways. And that is in some part a situation created by the COL and need to have two incomes in many places.

But there is a very weird thing from certain posters, across MN, where policy ideas that are actually very much what a lot of women have wanted to support their desire to have kids, or a few more kids, and maybe have some more flexibility around their childcare arrangements, are being charachterised very weirdly as being "like the Taliban," or somehow forcing women to have kids, or pushing them into the 1950s. Of course not all women think that kind of policy is the best idea, or effective, but it has been something many have talked about, including in feminist discourse. And as far as I can see the only reason they are now characterising it as Taliban-like is because it's coming from a party from which they are committed to rejecting all policy suggestions.

It's a bit like the TDS people - if Trump supported a pro-kitten agenda, they'd suddenly hate kittens.

I think it's a more complicated picture than that.

I think among upper middle class people what we see is men and women pushing having kids back in order to establish themselves economically and in their careers, after an extended education. This is the case whether or not they meet a long term partner during that time, but the fact that they are not going to start a family for years makes finding a partner less urgent. This group has fewer kids for a number of reasons but the late start is a big part of it. Even with no fertility issues if you have your first child at 35 or later chances are you will only have one or two.

It's often the more working class families that find they are able to have more kids, because they don't have such extended educations and start earlier, and the trade-offs around one parent working part time are differernt. What trips up this group is often the cost of living, especially where marriages break down.

There is also a segment, which is typically more working class or even in some cases people who are not working at all, where they typically have kids much younger, but the fathers are marginally involved, even if they pay support they are often not all that present. The issues in these families include money of course, but also I would argue around the social and emotional consequences of uninvolved fathers.

I would say the solutions to create better family lives for these groups will have to vary pretty significantly.

That's not true though. There's lots of evidence now that richer parents have more children on average than poorer familíes https://www.boomcampaign.org/p/the-parent-gap-between-rich-and-poor
It is true that when women in lower socio economic groups have children they tend to have them earlier (beforé 30) than women in higher socio-economic groups (after 30). But that's not a new development and in fact that gap has been closing not widening. Overall they don't have more children in total they seem to have less.
In fact one of the reasons for the decline in birth rate is the reduction in teenage pregnancies. Unplanned teenage pregnancy was more likely to affect lower socio-economic groups (and more likely to push women into lower economic groups). There's been huge success across Europe and the EU in reducing unplanned teenage pregnancies but that's also pushed the average birth rate down and the age of mothers up. And the biggest driver of that change is changed behaviour of lower socio economic groups.

My point was that reproduction is one of the basic and human instinctive drives - regardless of whether all people do so or not.

Look at the increasing number of dogs (and cats) there are now..... as people/couples seek to nurture and create a semblance of family life.

If my last post was too long
While it might be true that lower socio-economic groups have babies earlier that's always been the case and the age of first time parents for lower socio economic groups has been rising fastest. Again Mat Godwin is working from a template/stereotype thats out of date. The feckless single mother with 2 kids before she's 18 is far less of a thing now than in the past. Its not a growing problem noone is addressing.

I thought Reform believes we’re over populated as a country.

It's good to know that the number of teenage pregnancy's is going down, children having children is not good for children. I count that as a piece of good news. 😁👍

Yes. I think actually it went down a lot and then went up a bit and sort of mimsied about. But it's much better than say the 90s when a lot of these opinions formed.
Stereotypically liberal countries like the Netherlands tend to have the lowest teen pregnancy rates. Probably because of sex education. I have other issues with the Netherlands, but there's now a lot of evidence on the best way of reducing teenage single mothers and it's not a right wing focus on the ”sexual economy".

There's a whole community of people who have a regulated sexual economy: long marriages, almost zero teen pregnancies, dads that stick around, no multiple fathers. I belong to one such.
But that's the community Suella Braverman has scapegoated as " a failure of multiculturism".
So I guess Reform only wants strong white families.

You are probably right about the numbers, but again, the reasons are imo differernt. Among the professional classes it's more about later starts to childbearing and demands of continuing a career. (And there is a subset here of families where the mother stops working and they will often have more kids. Maybe younger too, but these families are able and willing to have one salary.)

Families like this might most benefit from something like social changes around education and career where it is more acceptable for families to have a non-standard career progression, maybe even have a family earlier and a later career start. Also potentially changes to things like how pensions and benefits are managed.

The working class families are suffering from lack of affordability, and they are the ones that could potentially really benefit from taxing families rather than individuals. They can't typically afford to do things like hire in a lot of extra childcare or cleaners etc, and so it's often more manageable if one or both parents can reduce work hours, and tax changes like that would be really beneficial.

I think the point is that if you want to, say, nudge people who would like to have one or two more children than they do, you need to make it possible for them to have their first child a little younger. That doesn't mean under 18, it means in their 20s as opposed to the end of their 30s.

Yes but when your lot do it its proof all the women are oppressed and this goes against British values or something. And the male patriarchs force their women to vote Green. But also we sort of need women to be a bit more oppressed to solve the problem.

Exactly. There is not a single unmarried mum in my extended family.
Baffling that what is terrible in brown families is to be encouraged in white families.

Why would you think that Suella Braverman only wants white families? That seems improbable, on the face of it.

What specifically did she see as a failure in your community? I doubt it was things like long marriages. Lack of integration? Women's rights? Something else?

I think it's fairly widely thought that the family culture in many more traditional and recently arrived communities is very strong and that is good for their kids and by extension, society. That doesn't necessarily mean that multi-culturalism doesn't present challenges as well.

I think a fairly typically perspective among Reform supporters is that population growth isn't desirable, but also a quick population drop is a problem, and that immigration as the main solution comes with its own problems. The best approach is to encourage communities that are already successfully established to have a few more kids and supplement that with careful, targeted immigration in numbers that allow for effective integration.

None of this is about teen pregnancy, I have no idea why that was even brought up. No one is saying pre-teen pregnancy is a good idea, either.

Yes but the average age for first births isn't late thirties. It's 29.2 in England and Wales overall. If you just look at professional groups its above 30 but not massively so. I understand that noone is saying that they want teenagers to have children. But when people quote statistics about the birth rate going up they need to account that part of the reason is the reduction in teenage births pushing the average up.
I see your point about creating the environment for people to have the children they want. But I also want the children that are born to be supported. If you give some parents tax breaks but pay for that by removing child benefit from others (reinstating the child benefit cap) then the most vulnerable will suffer and you likely won't rais ether birth rate. Plus it's the people working but in lower paid occupations who have reduced the number of children they have the most. Those are the ones hit by the child benefit cap (working families also often need child benefits.)

Its a thorny, complex issue where different people will have completely valid different opinions. But talking about the "Sexual Exonomy” isn't it.

If we talk about statistics by default we are talking about everyone caught in those stats. If less teenagers have children the average age of first time mothers goes up. Even if everyone else's behaviour stays exactly the same. Teen pregnancy is very relevant if you want to quote statistics about the average age of mothers rising.

Also I got sidetracked because you referenced a segment, which is typically more working class or even in some cases people who are not working at all, where they typically have kids much younger, but the fathers are marginally involved, I assumed you meant teenage mother's since they are the age group least likely to have sustained paternal involvement but apologies if not!

Why would you think that Suella Braverman only wants white families?

Suella Braverman wants what is best for Suella Braverman and nothing more.

She doesn't care about you. She doesn't know who you are. And if she did she'd use that knowledge to avoid you.

Also to be fair the birth rate in second and third generation families tends to fall to the average UK levels even if divorce rates etc don't change. (This is also true for Muslim families and other religious groups). So while there are probably lots of benefits to stable 2 parent families they won't bolster the birth rate.

Sorry that was @CharlotteRumpling

Suella needs to suck up to Reform and somehow get everyone to forget that she is a half- Hindu child of immigrants. It was ever thus. Brown people have to try to out Reform Reform to get into government and the best way to do it is to chuck themselves and their parents under the bus.

Women's rights? I mean, every single woman in my community is a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or an accountant. My mum had a masters in the 60s! All financially independent. They have better women's rights than the teen dropouts gaming all day and heading for low paid careers.
But yes, of course, multiculturism has failed.

Does Kruger have any ideas on how to make deadbeat dads pay for the kids they had? The whole of MN is filled with posts by abandoned mums who get no maintenance.

Yes, but the argument is that women having University education and proffesional careers is part of the problem. Both because it means we have children later and because the feminisation of universities and their infiltration by childless women is destroying society.
So shame on you!

I think it's very difficult to figure out what the best approach, from a government standpoint, is.

As far as tax breaks for those with kids, it does not seem to be especially effective in places where they have tried that. On the other hand, the idea of taxing households rather than individuals makes quite a lot of sense to me, I think if done well it allows households more room to figure out what kind of employment, childcare, and other arrangements will work best for them. which is good because circumstances can vary so much and you can never create government programs to deal with each of them. SO for me it appeals not just in terms of direct help, but even moreso because I think it reflects the way families do in fact work together.

The benefit cap is trickier - or child benefits at all really. It's very direct money in people's pockets. I suppose the worry I have with it - and where I live we have a substantial benefit that does not have a per child limit - is that you do in fact see parents have kids in order to prop up their income. Which would be fine except when those kids won't, as you said, be supported appropriately. I was able when I was a young mother to stay home for quite a few years because of that benefit, so I appreciate that possibility. But the situations I come across where it is abused are worrisome.

But talking about "sexual economy"? I don't really get the objection, other than that I like some others initially thought he was talking about prostitution. But I think his meaning is reasonable, and I like the use of economy when discussing the workings of the household, I think it's very appropriate.

OK?