The Tories and Labour have turned Britain into a food bank for the world at the expense of our own people.

Instead of supporting Brits, successive governments have instead spent billions supporting migrants.

There are no better examples than the most recent ‘Boriswave’, where former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, despite his tough rhetoric on immigration, betrayed the electorate and welcomed record numbers of migrants into this country.

Around 3.8 million new people arrived into Britain on long-term visas, and estimates suggest that at least 800,00 will be granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR), giving them unfettered access to Britain’s welfare system to the tune of £234 billion to the public purse.

Around half of these will never be in work, taking from their host country and contributing nothing in return.

The welfare system is already bloated. Of the staggering £266 billion we spend on welfare, £9 billion went to foreign nationals. Every 1 in 6 people on Universal Credit is a foreign national.

This complete con of our system must end. Only Reform will address this head on by slashing the welfare bill. The plan we have announced today, which will save British taxpayers £230 billion, is just the beginning.

Nigel Farage vows to ban all foreign nationals from claiming benefits

Nigel Farage has placed welfare and immigration at the centre of Reform UK’s political agenda with a proposal that would remove access to most benefits from foreign nationals living in Britain. The policy, announced as part of a wider attempt to reshape the welfare system, would represent a significant change from the current rules and could have consequences for people who have lived and worked in the UK for many years.

Reform UK says its principle is straightforward: access to the welfare system should be restricted to British citizens, with limited exceptions. The party has argued that taxpayers should not be expected to finance welfare payments for people who are not British nationals.

The proposal was formally outlined by Reform’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick in August 2026, while Farage has also promoted the broader policy through his own statements. Reform says the measures could save approximately £21 billion a year once fully implemented. However, that figure is a projection supplied by the party rather than an independently established saving.

Under the proposal, foreign nationals would lose eligibility for a wide range of payments. These include Universal Credit, Jobseeker’s Allowance, Child Benefit, Housing Benefit, Pension Credit, free childcare and disability-related benefits.

The plan goes substantially further than Reform’s earlier proposal to restrict foreign nationals’ access to Universal Credit. The party now says its approach would cover almost all forms of welfare support.

There would nevertheless be some exceptions. Reform has indicated that certain payments connected to military service, including Armed Forces compensation and the War Widows Pension, would be protected. Foreign nationals who have made sufficient National Insurance contributions to qualify for the state pension would also continue to receive their state pension under the party’s current policy.

That distinction is important because the proposal is not simply about immigration status. It would also create a new dividing line within the welfare system based on nationality.

Reform’s stated position is that British citizens should have access to the welfare state while foreign nationals should generally not. Its official policy document says there would be “no recourse to benefits for foreign nationals” under a Reform government.

The party also intends to replace indefinite leave to remain with renewable five-year visas for many migrants, accompanied by higher salary thresholds, stronger English-language requirements and other conditions.

One of the most significant complications concerns European citizens who have settled status in Britain.

Under the existing post-Brexit arrangements, many EU citizens with settled status have legal rights to live and work in the UK and retain access to certain benefits on the same basis as other eligible residents. Reform has said it would seek to change that position.

This means the policy could require negotiations with the European Union because the rights of EU citizens were incorporated into the UK’s Brexit settlement. ITV reported that Reform acknowledged the issue and accepted that British citizens living in EU countries could potentially face reciprocal consequences.

The question of settled-status holders has therefore become one of the most contentious parts of the proposal.

Reform argues that existing arrangements are unfair to British taxpayers and that the welfare system should prioritise British citizens. Jenrick described the present system as allowing British workers to finance benefits for people from overseas.

The party has also presented the policy as part of a much broader attempt to reduce government welfare spending. Reform has said its overall programme could save more than £50 billion a year, combining restrictions on foreign-national welfare with proposed changes to sickness and disability benefits and other reforms.

However, critics have challenged both the policy and its projected consequences.

Labour has argued that the proposal could reopen difficult questions surrounding the UK’s relationship with the EU and could remove support from people who have lived, worked and paid taxes in Britain for many years.

The criticism also focuses on the practical definition of contribution. A person could have lived in Britain for decades, worked and paid National Insurance, yet remain a foreign national because they had not obtained British citizenship.

Reform has acknowledged this distinction. The Independent reported that the party said someone who had lived and worked in Britain for 25 years could retain their state pension if eligible but could lose access to other benefits. Such a person could apply for British citizenship under the proposed system.

That creates a potentially important incentive for citizenship, but also raises questions about people who have deep social and economic connections to Britain without holding British nationality.

The proposal must also be understood alongside Farage’s wider immigration programme.

In June, Farage said Reform would ban foreign nationals from accessing welfare, including social housing. He proposed giving people already living in social housing a three-month period to find alternative private accommodation, with those unable to do so potentially losing their right to remain.

Social housing is therefore another major part of Reform’s proposed distinction between British citizens and foreign nationals.

The party subsequently developed its housing policy further, saying British-born applicants and certain groups would receive greater priority for social housing. The proposals have generated criticism from housing organisations and campaigners, who have questioned their impact on homelessness and the operation of the social-housing system.

The welfare proposal has also raised questions about the number of people who would actually be affected.

Reform has cited very large potential savings, but those figures depend on assumptions about how many foreign nationals currently receive benefits, how many would otherwise qualify for payments in the future and how many people would acquire British citizenship.

The party’s own policy document says foreign nationals with EU settled status are not included in its proposed changes to immigration status, but it separately states that their benefit entitlement would change under a Reform government.

That distinction means the eventual impact would depend heavily on legislation and on negotiations over existing legal rights.

There is also a wider economic question.

Supporters of Reform’s proposal argue that reducing welfare eligibility for foreign nationals would reduce government spending and ensure that the welfare state is concentrated on British citizens. Reform presents this as part of a broader programme to reduce what it considers excessive welfare expenditure.

Opponents take a different view. They argue that many foreign nationals work, pay taxes and National Insurance, contribute to public services and participate in the economy. From this perspective, nationality alone may not provide a complete measure of someone’s contribution to the British economy.

The disagreement therefore goes beyond a single benefit policy. It concerns the underlying principle of the welfare state: whether eligibility should primarily depend on citizenship, residence, contributions, immigration status or a combination of these factors.

The proposal would also require Parliament to determine precisely how the system worked in practice. Questions would include which benefits were covered, how existing claimants would be treated, how citizenship would affect eligibility, what protections would apply to vulnerable people and how international agreements would interact with the new rules.

Reform’s proposal is consequently a policy commitment rather than an existing change to Britain’s welfare system. Current eligibility rules remain in place unless and until Parliament changes the law.

Farage has nevertheless made the issue an important part of Reform UK’s wider argument over immigration and public spending. His party links immigration controls, welfare reform, housing policy and citizenship rules into a single political programme designed to give British citizens priority in access to state support.

The proposal is likely to remain controversial because it combines two major areas of public policy: immigration and welfare.

For Reform, restricting benefits to British citizens is presented as a way of reducing expenditure and redefining the purpose of the welfare state. For Labour and other critics, the central concerns involve legal rights, Britain’s post-Brexit arrangements and the treatment of people who have spent many years living and working in the country.

What ultimately happens would depend on the legislation introduced by any future government, parliamentary approval and, potentially, negotiations with the European Union.

For now, Farage’s pledge represents one of the clearest examples of Reform UK’s attempt to connect its immigration programme with a fundamental restructuring of welfare eligibility. The debate is therefore not simply about how much the government spends, but about who should qualify for support and what rights should accompany long-term residence in Britain.