FARAGE BIDS TO SHOW CLEAR BENEFITS OVER LABOUR – Reform tries to stake a claim for traditional Labour voters.
Nigel Farage is set to exploit Labour’s winter fuel payments climbdown to make a grab for the party’s traditional voter-base by calling for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped, a move that could further aggravate government splits over the issue.
This weekend, it has become clear there is a price to pay for Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to row back on winter fuel payment cuts.
One MP said in a text message: “We all want to see more”, while former prime minister Gordon Brown told Sky News this week the two-child benefit cap was “pretty discriminatory” and could be scrapped.
The cap, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children, is a symbolic sore point for Labour that saw seven MPs suspended from the party last year. Now it’s back to cause more trouble.
A Downing Street source suggests little has changed in the last week, and looking at the cap has always been part of the (now delayed) Child Poverty Strategy.
We expect Reform UK to announce this week that it will reinstate winter fuel payments and drop the cap.
Farage is parking his tanks on Labour’s lawn, trying to tap into working-class votes on uncomfortable territory for Starmer.
How would they pay for it? A combination of closing asylum hotels, cutting aid, and scrapping net-zero targets, the party says.
Reform UK, who were beaten by Labour in 89 out of the 98 constituencies they came second in last year, have set their sights beyond the Conservatives.
