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Reform UK leader expected to promise deregulation and spending cuts as Labour and Conservatives attack policies
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Nigel Farage speaks to the media in October. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
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Farage to give speech on his 'economic vision', with Labour saying he backs austerity and Tories claiming he's leftwing
Good morning. Even though Reform UK has had a clear lead over all other parties in opinion polls for much of the year, it has multiple vulnerabilities. One of them is that immigration is the only potential winning issue it has got, because on all almost other subjects its policy offer is flimsy and its credibility is minimal. And nowhere is this more obvious than on the economy, where the party has already had to admit that the £90bn tax cuts it was proposing in its manifesto last year are now being ditched because they are unachievable.
Today Nigel Farage is trying to address this problem with a speech where, as he puts it, he will “set out our economic vision for a future Reform government”. As Kiran Stacey reports in his preview, Farage will commit the party to wholesale deregulation.
Farage will also say that, under Reform, spending cuts would happen before tax cuts.
Reform will get public spending under control, so that the nation’s borrowing costs come down. Then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth. We must get the economy growing.
This is a huge change from what Farage was offering last year.
There was a time when Labour and the Conservatives largely ignored Farage speeches, but last night they both issued lengthy “pre-buttal” comments that contained more information than the Reform party preview. Labour said that Farage would revive austerity. A Labour spokesperson said:
Nigel Farage says he is offering something new – but for all his talk, his plan would take us back to austerity.
We’ve seen from the councils Reform run that they’ve failed to deliver the savings they already promised and are cutting services and raising taxes as a result. They’ve said themselves that those councils are a shop window for what a Reform government would do nationally – we know that this is more empty promises and no real plan.
The Conservatives issued a seven-page document attacking Reform’s economic policy. In a statement, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said Reform promises “disintegrate after five minutes” and that its economic policies are “leftwing”.
Of the two lines of attack, Labour “austerity” one is more plausible, not least because of what Farage plans to say today about spending cuts coming before tax cuts. The Tories are trying to depict Reform as “leftwing” partly because some of their welfare proposals don’t involve cuts as deep as those proposed by the Tories and because the last Reform manifesto included a plan for public utilities to be run according to a model involving 50% public ownership, with the over 50% being owned by UK pension funds. But this is not an idea that Reform has been promoting recently; this aspect of the Tory briefing does not take into account Stride’s point about Reform manifesto promises only lasting five minutes.
After the speech, other parties will get the chance to revise their attack lines against Reform.
There is a lot of other stuff on today too. Here is the agenda.
10.30am: Chester crown court starts hearing an election petition challenging the result of the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, which was won by Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin by six votes.
11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, gives a speech on economic policy.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
1.30am: Sir Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, and Sir Olly Robbins, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, give evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the work of the Foreign Office. The hearing is expected to include questions about the vetting of Peter Mandelson before he was appointed ambassador to the US.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, makes a statement to MPs about the Huntingdon train attack.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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Farage to give speech on his 'economic vision', with Labour saying he backs austerity and Tories claiming he's leftwing
Good morning. Even though Reform UK has had a clear lead over all other parties in opinion polls for much of the year, it has multiple vulnerabilities. One of them is that immigration is the only potential winning issue it has got, because on all almost other subjects its policy offer is flimsy and its credibility is minimal. And nowhere is this more obvious than on the economy, where the party has already had to admit that the £90bn tax cuts it was proposing in its manifesto last year are now being ditched because they are unachievable.
Today Nigel Farage is trying to address this problem with a speech where, as he puts it, he will “set out our economic vision for a future Reform government”. As Kiran Stacey reports in his preview, Farage will commit the party to wholesale deregulation.
Farage will also say that, under Reform, spending cuts would happen before tax cuts.
Reform will get public spending under control, so that the nation’s borrowing costs come down. Then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth. We must get the economy growing.
This is a huge change from what Farage was offering last year.
There was a time when Labour and the Conservatives largely ignored Farage speeches, but last night they both issued lengthy “pre-buttal” comments that contained more information than the Reform party preview. Labour said that Farage would revive austerity. A Labour spokesperson said:
Nigel Farage says he is offering something new – but for all his talk, his plan would take us back to austerity.
We’ve seen from the councils Reform run that they’ve failed to deliver the savings they already promised and are cutting services and raising taxes as a result. They’ve said themselves that those councils are a shop window for what a Reform government would do nationally – we know that this is more empty promises and no real plan.
The Conservatives issued a seven-page document attacking Reform’s economic policy. In a statement, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said Reform promises “disintegrate after five minutes” and that its economic policies are “leftwing”.
Of the two lines of attack, Labour “austerity” one is more plausible, not least because of what Farage plans to say today about spending cuts coming before tax cuts. The Tories are trying to depict Reform as “leftwing” partly because some of their welfare proposals don’t involve cuts as deep as those proposed by the Tories and because the last Reform manifesto included a plan for public utilities to be run according to a model involving 50% public ownership, with the over 50% being owned by UK pension funds. But this is not an idea that Reform has been promoting recently; this aspect of the Tory briefing does not take into account Stride’s point about Reform manifesto promises only lasting five minutes.
After the speech, other parties will get the chance to revise their attack lines against Reform.
There is a lot of other stuff on today too. Here is the agenda.
10.30am: Chester crown court starts hearing an election petition challenging the result of the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, which was won by Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin by six votes.
11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, gives a speech on economic policy.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
1.30am: Sir Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, and Sir Olly Robbins, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, give evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the work of the Foreign Office. The hearing is expected to include questions about the vetting of Peter Mandelson before he was appointed ambassador to the US.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, makes a statement to MPs about the Huntingdon train attack.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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