Another big element of Reform’s planned cuts comes from taking away benefits from foreign nationals. It claims around £20bn could be saved from its £50bn target if they were banned from getting benefits including Universal Credit (UC).
More than a million UC claimants were born overseas including around 700,000 EU citizens who arrived in the UK before Brexit and have the right to live and work in the country.
It’s important to bear in mind that around half of EU citizens claiming UC are in employment.
The government doesn’t provide figures for the number of foreign nationals claiming other benefits.
But taking away these benefit rights would not be a simple thing to do because it risks putting the UK on a collision course with the EU.
Around 4.5 million EU citizens have long-term settlement rights in the UK which means they are eligible to claim benefits.
An estimated one million UK citizens living in the EU have similar rights. Stripping EU citizens of their rights could lead to member states retaliating by taking away the benefits of Britons living in their countries.
Reform says it would renegotiate the post-Brexit deal that underpins these rights but that would mean re-opening a process that was supposed to have been settled in 2020.
Another wrinkle in Reform’s plan is that its planned savings could disappear if a large number of EU nationals apply to become UK citizens and were able to keep their entitlement to benefits.
