Amid the headlines covering the frenzy of Reform UK’s politics, including the party’s spectacular by-election victories, controversies surrounding its funding, and the Clacton by-election, far less attention has been paid to the substance of Reform’s policies. Through a series of manifestos and policy papers, Reform UK and its leading figures have made their agenda remarkably clear. Much less clear, however, is the impact of these policies on the British economy and industry, both of which Farage claims he is uniquely poised to revive.
Reform’s programme rests on three central pillars: immigration, the civil service, and Net Zero. The party argues that sweeping reforms in these three areas are essential to Britain’s prosperity. Yet many of its proposals risk harming British industry in several important ways, and it is therefore vital that we examine the party’s agenda more closely.
At the heart of Reform’s programme is a simple proposition: reduce what it describes as “wasteful spending” whilst simultaneously cutting taxes. Keen to avoid a situation like that produced by Liz Truss’s disastrous 2022 mini budget the party insists on cutting spending before cutting taxes. It claims that measures such as cutting welfare spending, immigration, and the civil service would save around £350 billion over the course of a parliament.
Reality, however, seems to be different.
Reform has claimed to have saved more than £332 million in the local councils it controls, yet it has yet to publish evidence for these claims. The evidence that is available paints a different picture. Owing to austerity policies under successive Conservative governments, sweeping cuts have already been made to local government, leaving councils with little room to make further cuts without reducing public services. This reality has even been acknowledged by Reform politicians themselves, including Kent County Council leader Paul Chamberlain.
Indeed, Reform-run councils have found themselves raising council tax to meet rising social care costs. Financial pressures have forced tax increases amounting to roughly £250 million.
The gap between rhetoric and reality is evident across Reform UK’s wider programme.
Civil Service
In late December 2025, Danny Kruger, who defected from the Conservatives to Reform, published a paper entitled “Storm and Sunshine”, outlining his proposals for reforming the civil service. Kruger argues that Whitehall has become “bloated”. While the case for reforming the civil service is persuasive, the proposals themselves appear far less convincing.
Kruger proposes reducing the Civil Service by around 100,000 staff, roughly 30% of its workforce, in an effort to save approximately £5.2 billion annually. Among the proposed cuts is the removal of 930 full-time equivalent occupational psychologists, which the paper
estimates would save around £60 million per year. However, around 90% of occupational psychologists work within the prison service, playing a crucial role in assessing offenders, supporting staff, and maintaining prison safety. Removing them could significantly undermine both prison management and the safety of officers.
When questioned about the potential consequences of these cuts, a Reform spokesperson responded simply that “prisons will be a much safer place to work under a Reform government,” without explaining how those outcomes would be achieved.
Other proposals included eliminating around one-quarter of Civil Service security roles. Given that many of these personnel work in the Foreign Office and at military installations, reductions on this scale could weaken the security of some of the UK’s most sensitive sites. In practice, such cuts may either prove politically impossible or generate significant long term costs that outweigh any immediate savings.
Climate Regulations
Reform has promised to introduce a “Great Repeal Act” which would reverse many climate policies and regulations, which, it claims, kills jobs, hinder growth, investment and property. The plan includes scrapping Net Zero targets and imposing windfall taxes on renewables, policies it claims could save £45bn–£225bn. The higher number, however, may be misleading, as it represents savings made by the private sector, not the government.
More fundamentally, these proposals ignore the long-term economic costs of climate change itself. Studies suggest that unchecked climate change could reduce economic output by between one-third and one-half over the coming decades, while destroying whole industries and supply chains.
On energy policy specifically, the NEF estimates that Reform’s policies could cost the UK around £92 billion, almost 3% of its entire GDP in lost economic activity and result in the further loss of over 60,000 jobs.
Immigration
Immigration might just be Reform’s most politically prominent issue.
In a document titled “Operation Restoring Justice”, Reform proposes deporting 600,000 immigrants in its first year in power, leaving the ECHR, and repealing the Human Rights Act. Zia Yusuf, Reform’s spokesperson for home affairs, has even suggested targeting areas controlled by the Green Party for immigration enforcement and paying countries such as Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to take back migrants. The party estimates these plans could save around £10 billion over five years.
Even assuming these proposals could be implemented successfully, which remains in doubt, the economic evidence points in the opposite direction.
Research from UCL suggests that large reductions in migration would reduce labour supply, lower economic output, and increase government borrowing. Between 2000–2011, migrants made a positive net contribution of more than £20 billion, while the fiscal contribution of the
UK-born population over the same period was estimated to be negative, costing the Exchequer approximately £617 billion.
The OBR likewise estimates that reducing annual net migration by 200,000 would lower GDP by around 1.5% while increasing government borrowing by almost £20 billion within five years. Critics therefore argue that reducing immigration on the scale proposed by Reform would also reduce economic growth, as the government would have less fiscal capacity to tackle the cost-of-living crisis or invest in public services.
The gap between Reform’s rhetoric and reality is filled with consequences for the British economy and the taxpayer. Behind promises of savings and growth lies a programme that risks weakening public services, reducing investment, and creating costs that far exceed the savings it claims to deliver, and it merits further and relentless scrutiny.