Reform unveils plan to top up poorest workers from £250,000 fee on rich UK newcomers

The Guardian

4 hours ago

Reform UK are to offer wealthy foreigners and returning British expats a bespoke tax regime in exchange for a one-off payment of £250,000 with all funds collected redistributed, the party claims, to Britain's lowest-paid workers.
The proposal, dubbed the Britannia Card, is due to be unveiled by party leader Nigel Farage later this week. It promises a 10-year residence permit and a return to the controversial 'remittance basis' of taxation, allowing cardholders to shield overseas income from UK tax and avoid inheritance tax entirely.
In return, high-net-worth applicants would pay an upfront 'entry contribution' of £250,000, which Reform UK said will be distributed in full to the bottom 10% of UK earners.
Reform estimates this 'Britannia workers' dividend' could provide a tax-free annual payout of £600-£1,000 to roughly 2.5 million low-paid full-time workers, depending on uptake. The money would be delivered directly by HMRC at the end of each tax year.
Under the plan, foreign nationals and wealthy British returnees would gain access to the UK through a tax-light regime that exempts all overseas income and assets from UK taxation for a decade. Inheritance tax is also scrapped entirely.
In effect, Reform is proposing to sell exemption from the UK tax system – reinstating the abolished non-dom privileges in a simplified form but with a cash price attached. The party insists the fee is not a 'golden visa' but a way of ensuring wealthy newcomers 'immediately contribute to British society'.
Unlike Labour's 2024 abolition of non-dom status, the main change the former Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt pointed to in his last budget, which placed all new arrivals onto a residence-based tax system, Reform's approach would reintroduce tax advantages for the globally mobile – while simultaneously claiming to deliver for the British working class.
Critics are likely to seize on what amounts to a structural loophole: the ability for millionaires to buy their way out of full UK tax liability, while ordinary residents remain subject to standard tax rules.
Reform claims the policy will channel billions directly into the bank accounts of Britain's poorest workers.
Under its lowest-uptake scenario (6,000 Britannia Cards issued a year), the scheme would generate £1.5bn – enough to fund a £600 tax-free bonus to 2.5 million workers. A high-uptake scenario (10,000 cards) would raise £2.5bn, delivering £1,000 per worker.
Only full-time workers in the bottom 10% of the income distribution would qualify, with payments issued automatically via HMRC. Reform said the boost would disproportionately benefit workers in Wales, Scotland and the north-east of England – regions where a greater share of jobs sit in the bottom pay decile.
The party has yet to publish a clear threshold for who qualifies as a 'high-net-worth newcomer' nor how the policy would be enforced or integrated into HMRC's current tax framework. No legislative draft has been released.
Since sweeping to power in more than 670 council seats in May and taking control of 10 councils and two mayoralties, Reform has emerged as a serious national contender. The party now leads in multiple polls: a recent Sky/YouGov tracker shows Reform on 34%, with Labour trailing at 25% and the Conservatives at just 15%.
The move is part of Farage's latest attempt to position Reform as the party of working people, not through traditional wage policies or trade unionism, but via direct wealth transfers and blunt fiscal symbolism. The Britannia Card is his clearest move yet to dominate the 'red wall' on economic terms.
However the policy is likely to raise questions over who would be eligible with no confirmed income or asset threshold for applicants. It is also unclear whether HMRC could legally define and enforce the £250,000 fee.
There are also concerns over it creating a two-tier tax system with British workers still paying full tax on global income while wealthy newcomers will not, and that it consists of a one-off fee and is not a recurring tax yet grants up to 10 years of preferential status.
A Reform spokesperson said: 'We are serious about repairing the social contract. It's time workers feel the benefit of high-net-worth individuals entering the country.
'We are taking policy formulation very serious internally, as can be seen by today's announcement.'
Responding to the trail of Reform's non-dom policy, a Labour spokesperson said: 'Nigel Farage can brand this whatever he wants - the reality is his first proper policy is a golden ticket for foreign billionaires to avoid the tax they owe in this country.
'As ever with Reform, the devil is in the detail. This giveaway would reduce revenues raised from the rich that would have to be made up elsewhere - through tax hikes on working families or through Farage's promise to charge them to use the NHS.'