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🚨 Reform UK has published a set of proposals that put British citizens first. If Rachel Reeves adopted these measures tomorrow, she could save or raise £25bn this year alone, enough to plug the fiscal black hole without hammering working families with yet more tax rises. “Tough decisions must be made” has become the refrain of a political class that insists British people tighten their belts, again and again, while they continue writing blank cheques to the rest of the world. Whether it was the Tories before, or Labour today, the script never changes: taxes go up, services get worse. What they never admit is that the only people ever asked to sacrifice are the British people themselves, while the state funnels ever larger sums to foreign nationals. Britain has been turned into a global food bank, funded by taxpayers who can barely keep up with their own mortgages and energy bills. It is immoral, economically illiterate and politically indefensible. And it must end. Here is how: 1. End Universal Credit for foreign nationals – saving £6bn The Government hides most of the data on how much welfare is spent on foreign nationals. The exception is Universal Credit: foreign nationals receive around £8bn a year in UC alone. Even allowing for a reasonable three-month transition period, this would save £6bn this year. This includes those with EU settled status. And it must include them, because the system we inherited from Theresa May and Boris Johnson is ludicrously asymmetric. In 2015, there were around four times as many EU citizens claiming benefits in the UK as Brits claiming in the entire EU. Since then, the number of EU claimants here has risen sevenfold. Prime Minister Nigel Farage will renegotiate these one-sided arrangements. 2. Raise the Immigration Health Surcharge – raising £5bn The population has grown by 10 per cent since 2010, almost entirely through immigration, while NHS spending has nearly doubled in real terms, from around £110bn to £205bn. And yet NHS bed capacity has fallen. That alone tells you the system is being overwhelmed. The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) is supposed to offset the cost of treating visa holders. But Tory ministers deliberately set it far below the real cost. The standard charge today is £1,035, a number so absurdly low that the Government admits it represents just 38 per cent of actual per-capita NHS expenditure. The Tories signed off an effective 62 per cent taxpayer-funded discount for foreign nationals to use the NHS. Reform will raise the IHS to the Government’s own calculated cost of £2,718 a year and end the maze of exemptions that allow thousands of migrants to avoid paying entirely. Based on Labour’s migration forecasts, this raises £5bn this year. 3. PIP reform – saving £3.5bn Reform will focus Personal Independence Payment on serious, life-impacting disabilities, not mild anxiety issues. Shifting these claimants on to back-to-work programmes will save £32-37bn over five years, and £3.5bn this year alone. By 2029/30, annual savings reach £8.9bn. 4. Cap foreign aid at £1bn – saving £10bn Charity begins at home. It is indefensible that while British children go without dental appointments and pensioners cannot get GP slots, the UK funds a £52m “road to nowhere” in Guyana. While Labour resisted a national inquiry into grooming gangs, Britain wired £19m to Pakistan for child exploitation prevention programmes. The Tories sent Pakistan more than £100m for “family planning”. We even send millions to Turkey, whose teenagers now outperform Welsh 15-year-olds in basic education. Reform will cap foreign aid at £1bn, enough to meet our core UN obligations, support Ukraine, provide emergency relief and promote British interests abroad. Everything else is an unaffordable luxury. This alone saves £10bn this year. 5. Deport foreign national offenders – saving £580m Britain’s prisons are full. Labour and the Tories want to release offenders early. Reform says deport foreign nationals from our prisons. Foreign nationals make up around 12 per cent of the prison population, 10,800 inmates, and cost £643m a year. Under Operation Restoring Justice, they would be prioritised for deportation or transfer to their home countries. Net of costs, this saves £580m a year. We are a generous country but we are not a limitless one. Reform’s proposals restore a principle that Westminster abandoned years ago: the British state exists to serve the British people. If Rachel Reeves wants to avoid hammering working families with yet more taxes, the solution is sitting right in front of her. The only question is whether she will finally put British citizens first. That’s precisely what Prime Minister Farage will do.