James Heale James Heale

The welfare state is Nigel Farage’s new battleground

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What, if anything, can stop Nigel Farage? That’s the question many in Westminster are asking as they try to reconcile themselves to the rise of Reform UK. The party has soared to 30 per cent in the polls – and is now seeking further gains. Farage’s speech this morning was his attempt to make hay from Labour’s woes on welfare. Reform, he pledged, would scrap both the winter fuel cut and the two-child benefit cap, while introducing a new tax allowance to reward married couples.

It was all part of Farage’s pitch to frame himself as the defender of the welfare state, besieged by cuts at home and invaders from abroad. He argues that, currently, social services are a perverse inversion, offering little to British voters while generously subsidising foreign citizens. Illegal migrants get free hotels while aspirational families must suffer. It is an argument with obvious appeal to many of the 9.7

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