Every Monday, the leader of the British nationalists, Nigel Farage, demonstrates that having five seats in a Parliament of 650 members is enough to take the political initiative. Usually, he achieves this by announcing the defection of some prominent conservative leader. But this Monday, he did it with a proposal to reduce immigration that has dominated all the headlines of the British media.
It is a proposal that, in the purest style of the Reform UK party - founded and chaired by Farage - promises that non-EU foreigners who have residency permits in the UK will lose them. This means that approximately 430,000 people, who currently can live and work in the British Isles indefinitely, will have to apply for a renewable five-year visa with "harsh conditions."
The proposal also includes raising the minimum salary that an immigrant must receive to be allowed to enter the country, although, in Farage's purest style, it does not specify what the new figure would be. Finally, it promises immense public spending by reducing access to public assistance for immigrants and by tightening the requirements for them to enter and stay in the UK.
The announced cut would be £234 billion (¤268 billion), almost 10% of the British GDP. Considering that London spends £802 billion a year on social protection, health, and education, it would represent a 29.7% cut. It is an impressive figure: almost a third of public spending on social matters. With such savings, the UK would go from having a public deficit of 3% of GDP to a surplus of 6%.
The only problem arises when reading the fine print: that spending cut will be spread over 50 to 80 years. That is to say, its real effects would be minuscule: between ¤5.360 billion a year (the most optimistic scenario) and ¤3.350 billion (the 80-year scenario). Not to mention what the real value will be when accounting for inflation, of ¤3.350 billion in 2019 (this figure is obtained by imagining that Farage will become Prime Minister in 2028, and his reform would take effect the following year).
Furthermore, the plan has another manifest weakness, as both the Tories, who compete with Reform for the conservative vote, and the Labour Party in government, fear that part of the working-class vote will go to Farage's populists: during that period, no one can predict how many immigrants will arrive or how many will start the procedures to settle permanently or obtain citizenship.
All these technical weaknesses have been fodder for Farage's rivals. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves, who is currently embarked on a desperate budget adjustment plan for November 20, when next year's Budget will be presented, stated that Reform UK's proposal "has no basis in reality." Tory Chris Philp added that Farage's proposals "are half-baked." Additionally, the fact that EU citizens are exempt from part of the proposals has irritated part of Farage's party base.
However, all these criticisms do not affect Farage. In the report presentation, he assured that the spending cut will be greater than £234 billion, although he did not provide any evidence of this (perhaps because it would first require explaining how the other figure was reached). In any case, Farage already knows that with a magical figure, many votes can be won. In 2016, he promised that if the UK left the EU, healthcare spending would increase by £750 million a week, that is, £39 billion a year (¤45 billion). Almost a decade has passed, the UK has left the EU, and the millionaire windfall has not reached the British healthcare system.