26. October 2025

Reform UK proposes stripping EU citizens of benefit eligibility as part of £20bn spending cuts

Nigel Farage has announced that Reform UK would remove EU citizens’ right to claim benefits as part of the party’s plan to slash £20bn from annual government spending. Farage stated the party intends to reopen negotiations on the previous government’s Brexit agreement to enable the change, arguing the deal was unfairly lopsided.

The proposals also include cutting overseas aid to a legal minimum, and nearly tripling the annual immigration health surcharge paid by visa applicants to access the NHS. The Conservatives dismissed the idea of unpicking the Brexit deal as “ridiculous”, while Labour warned it could trigger a trade war with Brussels.

Reform UK’s policy announcement comes ahead of next week’s Budget, where Chancellor Rachel Reeves is widely expected to introduce tax hikes. At a press conference unveiling the plans, policy chief Zia Yusuf argued the blueprint would reduce the need for tax increases by making foreign nationals “bear the brunt” before asking British citizens to “make sacrifices”.

The 2020 Brexit withdrawal deal signed by Boris Johnson allowed EU citizens resident in the UK before the end of the transition period to retain their benefit entitlement. Provisional government statistics, published for the first time in July, show this group accounted for 9.7% of universal credit claimants in June 2025.

Yusuf said that if Reform wins the next general election (due by 2029), it would halt benefit payments to all foreign nationals after a “reasonable” three-month notice period. The party estimates that restricting universal credit to British citizens only would save £6.4bn this year, rising to £10bn by the end of the decade.

A policy document circulated to journalists claimed the Brexit treaty had been “one-sided”, pointing to more Europeans claiming benefits in the UK than British citizens receiving support on the continent.

Huge tax cuts not currently realistic, Farage says

Do Reform’s economic plans add up?

The Conservatives have also outlined plans to stop paying benefits to foreign nationals, though they have stopped short of barring EU citizens from claiming. Speaking at a rival pre-Budget press conference, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described Reform’s proposal to reopen the Brexit deal as a “bad idea”.

“We spent a great deal of time negotiating those rights, not just for EU citizens in this country, but also for British citizens living in other EU nations,” she said. Noting the “significant pain and effort” invested in the withdrawal deal, she branded Farage’s suggestion of renegotiation “completely ridiculous”.

Labour chair Anna Turley also criticized the plan, warning it risked a “trade war with Europe” and “undoing” the government’s efforts to reduce trade barriers through a series of new deals with the EU.

In a BBC interview following the news conference, Farage said: “All I’m advocating for here is fairness. There is now a vastly disproportionate number of EU nationals in Britain claiming benefits compared to Britons abroad.”

He argued the UK would be well-positioned to renegotiate the Brexit deal because “we remain a crucial market for the European Union”, though he conceded “I’ve never pretended it would be easy”.

Asked about the prospect of EU retaliation if talks fail, he replied: “We can respond with tariffs. Two can play that game.”

“I don’t want to do that. But a renegotiation is needed to achieve a fair reset with the European Union,” he added.

Reform has also proposed capping overseas aid spending at £1bn a year, a new limit that would be enshrined in law to prevent “stealth increases”. This would represent a massive reduction in spending – even after recent cuts, the aid budget stood at around £14bn last year, including just under £3bn spent on asylum seeker accommodation in the UK.

Reform says it would allocate around £750m a year to maintain British membership of international organizations such as the UN and World Bank, with the remaining £250m going to aid for Ukraine and a fund for “genuine disaster relief”.

As part of the proposed £20bn in spending cuts, the party also plans to save £3.5bn a year by removing personal independence payments (Pip) – a disability benefit – from those with “non-serious anxiety issues”.

It also aims to raise around £5bn a year by increasing the immigration health surcharge from the current £1,035 to £2,718 annually.

Reform pledged to deliver around £90bn a year in tax cuts at the last election, but Farage rowed back on those plans earlier this month, arguing “substantial tax cuts” were not “realistic” given the state of public finances.

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