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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Monday briefing: What Farage's new obsession with nativism could mean
Good morning. In 2023, Nigel Farage went on a podcast to decry what he described as a culture of 'welfarism' in the UK, insisting it was making millions of people in the country lazy. ''I'm too fat, I'm too stupid, I'm too lazy, I don't get out of bed in the morning. I smoke drugs, give me money',' he said. ''I don't need to work, the state will provide for me' … We cannot afford it.' Less than two years later, the self-styled free-market crusader seems to be singing a different tune. Last week, he publicly backed the removal of the two-child benefit cap – a move that would lift 350,000 children out of poverty overnight and ease hardship for 700,000 more. So, what changed? At a press conference, he explained that removing the cap would help lower-paid workers have children. But then came the caveat: 'I want to emphasise that this is aimed at British families. It's not aimed at those that come into the country and suddenly decide to have a lot of children.' He didn't stop there. Farage also floated more generous tax breaks for married couples, if elected, and tougher restrictions on abortion. He called the current 24-week limit 'ludicrous'. This isn't a new strategy in Europe. Farage appears to be mirroring Hungary's Viktor Orbán, a pioneer in blending anti-immigration rhetoric with anti-abortion measures, while promoting nativist policies to boost birthrates. For today's newsletter, I spoke to Sian Norris, author of Bodies Under Siege: How the Far-Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global, about how these tactics are gaining ground in the UK, and what they could mean for the future of reproductive rights. That's after the headlines. Ukraine | Ukraine has launched a 'large-scale' drone attack against Russian military bombers in Siberia, striking more than 40 warplanes thousands of miles from its own territory. On the eve of peace talks, the drone attack on four separate airfields was part of a sharp ramping up of the three-year war. Israel-Gaza war | More than 30 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire on Sunday as they went to an aid distribution point in Gaza, according to witnesses. Israeli forces were said to have opened fire as Palestinians headed for the aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Poland | The populist-right opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki has won the presidential race in an extremely close contest. A pro-Trump nationalist, Nawrocki beat the pro-European Warsaw mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, in a major blow for Donald Tusk's coalition government. Defence | Britain needs to be ready to fight a war in Europe or the Atlantic, a strategic defence review will conclude. But the plan, to be launched on Monday, it is not expected to contain any additional spending commitments. Health | Exercise can reduce the risk of cancer patients dying by a third, stop tumours coming back and is even more effective than drugs, according to the results of a landmark trial that could transform health guidelines worldwide. When Sian Norris first began investigating the UK's anti-abortion movement, she came across an organisation called UK Life League. Its founder, Jim Dowson, is perhaps better known for starting the far-right party Britain First. At first glance, the group seemed focused solely on opposing abortion. But once she started digging into their language and literature, it was clear that anti-abortion and anti-immigration rhetoric were being fused together. Alongside the usual scaremongering about migrants 'replacing' white Britons ran a parallel narrative: that feminists were suppressing the white birthrate through abortion and contraception. Together, these ideas were feeding the same conspiracy theory – the so-called 'great replacement'. The group's magazine, Rescue, didn't exactly hide it. 'It would say things like: the children in our classrooms are being replaced by aliens, meaning migrant children, and that white babies were being aborted. It was very full of praise for people like Viktor Orbán and his family protection policy and his anti-migrant policies.' The moment it all clicked for Norris was when she saw a cartoon shared by Mark Collette, the founder of far-right group Patriotic Alternative. 'It was a picture of hijabi-wearing women in a maternity clinic and white women in an abortion clinic with the caption 'this is white genocide'. It's this idea that white women are not doing their 'duty' making white babies.' Norris also points to the man who carried out the terrorist attack against Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand. In his manifesto, he fixated on declining birthrates and blamed what he called 'selfish individualism' among women for not having enough children. These links between anti-abortion politics and the far right, Norris said, shouldn't come as a surprise. Often misogyny is the gateway drug to the far right for young men. 'If you've got male supremacy in your head, then white supremacy is the next obvious step.' The Orbán playbook A couple of months ago, Norris went undercover to a Reform rally in Birmingham. In one event, the host was 'throwing out Labour policies' to gauge the audience's reactions, she said. Some topics got big reactions, like winter fuel allowance cuts or the lack of housing for veterans. But when it came to proposed cuts to disability benefits, she told me, 'it was crickets.' The silence was revealing. 'Benefits themselves aren't really a motivating issue for Reform voters,' she said. Farage was quite explicit about this when he backed calls to scrap the two-child benefit cap, not because he supports 'a benefits culture'. He is first and foremost concerned with demographic concerns. Norris described that as a 'classic tactic' from the far right when it comes to natalist policies. 'Orbán is the European politician that really normalised great replacement conspiracy theory. He was the one that would go to conferences and talk about replacement, talk about demographics. He would say that if you wanted a Christian Hungary and a Christian Europe, the way to do this was to incentivise ethnic Hungarian married women to have more children,' she said. 'And, we know that Farage is really influenced by the kind of Orban, US conservatism movement.' She added that, for Farage, the driving force of this policy is not a concern about child poverty. 'He's talking about it because he wants more British women to have more British babies, and the fact that it would be coupled with this tax break for married couples is again a learned tactic from the far right in terms of what kind of families we value.' A new front in the culture war Farage has been active in British politics for more than three decades, but until recently, he had said very little about abortion. That changed last November, when he called for parliament to debate reducing the legal abortion limit from 24 weeks, citing advances in medical technology. The remarks marked a notable shift, which worries Norris. 'It feels like this is going to be the new front in the culture war. We know that the far right is very good at working out which issues are going to work in different territories. So in Poland, it's very much about abortion. In Romania, it's very much LGBT rights,' she said. Norris described the 24-week abortion limit as 'the wedge' when it comes to anti-abortion campaigning. 'Abortion has mass popular support in this country. The British Attitudes Survey puts it at about 90% support for abortion in some circumstances,' she said. 'But people do get really emotional about the 24-week limit because of foetus viability and the fact that you can technically have a baby below 24 weeks.' It's a tactic designed to trigger outrage and force a polarising debate, she explained. Supporters of abortion rights are pushed to defend procedures that are already rare and deeply complex. Only about 1% of UK abortions take place after 20 weeks, and these are almost always carried out in exceptional circumstances, such as severe foetal abnormalities or serious risks to the mother's health. 'I think it's going to be a whipping up of cultural values. It will be framed as: are you the mad, woke, pro-abortion side or the traditional, family-centric, anti-abortion side? That really concerns me,' Norris said. Her reporting has uncovered links between rightwing MPs and US-backed Christian charities funding anti-abortion campaigns in the UK. These groups, she says, are already laying the groundwork ahead of a potential parliamentary debate over legislation that would remove the threat of imprisonment for women who terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks. They would be using trialled and tested messaging and tactics, Norris explained, most notably in the US. 'As soon as you start chipping away at abortion rights, it's much easier to chip away at the next one,' she warned. 'We'll go from 24 weeks to 22 weeks, and then, 'well, what about 20 weeks?' And then, 'what about if we add in this extra barrier and say you have an ultrasound, or have to have counselling'?' The right direction It's still unclear how successful Farage will be with this new strategy. Over the past decade, the UK has seen a string of major victories for abortion rights: decriminalisation in Northern Ireland, the permanent adoption of telemedicine after the pandemic and the introduction of buffer zones around clinics. Now, the focus is on the upcoming parliamentary vote to decriminalise abortion. The vote, originally scheduled for last year, was expected to pass, even under a Conservative majority. 'Now I think with a Labour majority there's an even bigger chance of that happening. So I do think politically we are moving in the right direction and the momentum is for the pro-abortion movement,' Norris said. While she remains concerned about abortion becoming the next front in the UK's culture wars, Norris is confident that public support remains strong. 'The anti-abortion movement is very noisy, but it is pretty small.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion This is true, she added, even on a global scale. Although Roe v Wade was overturned in America, there were also significant global wins. In 2020, Argentina legalised abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. In Mexico, in 2023, the supreme court decriminalised abortion across the country. Norris points to a report by the Centre for Reproductive Rights, which found that over the past 30 years, more than 60 countries and territories have liberalised their abortion laws. Only four have rolled back access. Jacinda Ardern took power in New Zealand in the same year Donald Trump first became president in the United States; to her fans, she is a shining emblem of what politics might have been, or might still be. In Katharine Viner's fascinating interview for Saturday magazine, she reflects on the politician's lot: 'People only see the decisions you made, not the choices you had.' Archie As Aamna explains above, Reform UK's promise to remove the two-child benefit limit is an abrupt political pivot – but it is hardly representative of 'Farageonomics' as a whole. Richard Partington's column is a useful primer on who would really benefit from the party's tax and spending plans. Archie Deadlifts can help us move through life with a strong, flexible body. Guardian writer Phil Daoust pulls on his gym shorts and gives them a try. Aamna The Swiss village of Blatten had existed for more than 800 years; on Wednesday, it was obliterated by an avalanche. Tess McClure's report from Lötschental is a clear-eyed examination of the wider pattern of glacial collapse the disaster represents. Archie Fans of abrasive and challenging music should be delighted that the surviving members of Cabaret Voltaire are reforming to play shows celebrating their 50th anniversary. The Sheffield pioneers tell Daniel Dylan Wray about starting riots and recording David Attenborough. Alex Needham, acting head of newsletters Tennis | Defending champion Iga Świątek staged a stunning comeback against Elena Rybakina to reach the French Open quarter-finals 1-6, 6-3, 7-5. In the men's draw, Carlos Alcaraz reached the last eight with victory over Ben Shelton. Cricket | Joe Root produced a display of ethereal stroke-making on his way to an unbeaten 166 to give England victory over West Indies in the second one-day international. Root's innings made him the first Englishman to score more than 7,000 runs in the format. Cycling | Britain's Simon Yates sealed victory in the Giro d'Italia in Rome for his second Grand Tour title. Yates leapfrogged 21-year-old Giro debutant and race leader, Isaac del Toro and podium rival, Richard Carapaz in Saturday's mountain stage, one of the most stunning turnarounds in Grand Tour history. The Guardian splashes on a study showing 'Exercise 'better than drugs' to stop cancer returning'. The Times leads with 'Ukraine drone swarm hits Russian airbases' and the i paper has 'Britain sends warning to Putin with 12 new attack submarines'. The Telegraph splashes on 'Starmer's defence strategy in disarray' and the Mail goes with 'Labour's defence spending retreat'. The Express leads with 'Boats arriving 'like taxis' as migrant numbers surge' and the Metro has 'We've lost control', also on migrant crossings. For the FT, it's 'Bessent vows US will never default as market data lays bare investor anxiety' and the Mirror goes with 'One heart two heroes' on the impacts of an organ donation law. Making America pregnant again: the pro-natalist movement Why is pro-natalism – the idea that society should focus on producing children – a growing movement in the US? Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan speaks with Helen Pidd about the different groups of people who want the US population to have more babies. Sign up for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett's cartoons, the best Saturday magazine journalism and an exclusive look behind the scenes A bit of good news to remind you that the world's not all bad If you are looking for a break in a beautiful location to get your brain in creative mode, our readers have some recommendations. Wider Horizons in Berkshire is a vibrant outdoor gathering for young adults, featuring workshops, music, and poetry to spark creativity. Or what about Trigonos Retreat in Eryri (Snowdonia) which offers storytelling, yoga, and nature-based activities in a mythologically rich setting. If you want to go further afield, Creative Escapes provides immersive photography holidays in stunning locations like Sicily and Japan. Each retreat fosters artistic growth in its own unique way. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday And finally, the Guardian's puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Can Nigel Farage boost Britain's birth rate?
As Sir Keir Starmer continued to drag his feet over one of the most contentious policy issues among Labour MPs and voters, Nigel Farage spotted an opportunity. Proclaiming during a speech last week that Britain had 'lost our sense of focus of just how important family is', the Reform UK leader unveiled plans to lure frustrated Labour voters while also attempting to arrest a decline in the UK's birth rate. Farage pledged that an elected Reform would scrap the two-child benefit cap and introduce a transferable tax allowance for married couples, in a bid to encourage people to have children. 'This is part of a bigger package and policy that we are putting together to try and make the family a more important element in British life,' said Farage. It marks the party's move into pro-natalist policies. This embedded content is not available in your region. Reform's proposed transferable tax allowance for married couples takes inspiration from central Europe. During his time in office Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, has placed significant focus on the importance of birth rates and traditional families. Earlier this week, Farage said he was 'not moralising' on the significance of marriage and added that having been divorced twice his 'track record was not so good on this'. Reform's policy would exempt one partner in a marriage from paying tax on the first £25,000 of their salary. Ben Ramanauskas, a senior fellow in economics at the Policy Exchange, says the proposal would bring the UK 'into a territory where most European countries are'. He adds: 'They have a much more generous system when it comes to taxing households and families.' However, Ramanauskas cast doubt on the idea that the measure could encourage couples to have children: 'The proposal itself won't have much of an impact on what Farage is aiming for in terms of hoping to increase the birth rate.' Reform's plans also miss out a key group of would-be parents. More than half of children in the UK are born to couples out of wedlock. So with the transferable tax allowance only reserved for married couples, the baby boosting effect of the policy is unclear. The party has also said it would scrap the two child benefit cap, a pledge which is estimated to cost £3.4bn, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Tomáš Sobotka, deputy director at the Vienna Institute of Demography, says abolishing the cap would help to lift children out of poverty but its impact on Britain's birth rate is likely to be 'marginal'. 'Most parents today don't desire more than two kids so it's a select group of women and families who are having a third or a fourth child,' he says. 'Providing a bit more in services … will not change fertility planning among many couples.' In Hungary, Orbán's attempts to fix the country's birth crisis mean it spends around 5pc of its GDP on measures aimed at encouraging couples to have children. The most significant of these measures is the country's large tax breaks. Currently mothers under 30 pay no income tax and mothers with three or more children are exempt from paying income tax for life. Orbán has also pledged to extend the measure to mothers of two children by January 2026. The government also offers loans to newly-weds that can be partially or fully written off if the couple has two or three children – as well as subsidies for family car purchases and housing. Despite Orbán's significant spending and hopes of a baby boom, Hungary's birth rate stood at 1.52 children per woman in 2022, in the UK it was 1.53 children per woman in 2021. For context, a country needs a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to ensure it has a stable population, without immigration. 'In the last few years Hungary has experienced fertility declines to the same extent as other countries and it now has exactly the same fertility rate as the European average ... from that perspective Hungarian policies are not bringing in tremendous success,' says Sobotka. But Orbán's focus on large families is helping to deliver an uptick in the number of households with three or more children, Sobotka adds. In the Nordics, the picture isn't any clearer. Finland pioneered the introduction of family friendly policies including parental leave and childcare from the 1980s onwards. The country reported a rise in its birth rates in the 1990s despite going through a financial crisis. 'Introducing these kinds of policies if they are long term … longer parental leave and especially affordable childcare have been shown in a wealth of studies both in the Nordic countries and from other countries to be associated with somewhat higher fertility,' says Anna Rotkirch, of the Family Federation of Finland's Population Research Institute. However, she warns these measures 'are not enough for today's situation,' and that 'there's no silver bullet policy.' Indeed, the initial boost to Finland's birth rate in the late 20th century has waned and since 2010 the country has seen its birth rate decline by a third. Yet, Rotkirch says that while government spending and Reform's proposed policies might not have much of a demographic impact they were an important element in reducing child poverty. 'The cost of parenting is real and it is also economic,' she adds. 'Why do we have a society where you get poorer if you have a child?' Over in South Korea the picture is even more challenging. In May 2024, the then-president Yoon Suk Yeol asked for the parliament's cooperation to establish the Ministry of Low Birth Rate Counter-planning. 'We will mobilise all of the nation's capabilities to overcome the low birth rate, which can be considered a national emergency,' he said. The country has gone through a raft of measures including baby bonuses, subsidised fertility treatments and housing assistance but the country's fertility rate stood at 0.78 children per woman in 2024. Melinda Mills, a professor of demography at Oxford University say: 'They've also shown that throwing a lot of money at it doesn't work so you have to get to the root of people's lives. What are their work hours? Where do they live and work? Where's childcare?' One nation that has a slight edge in the birth rate compared to its European neighbours is France. Mills added that France's more comprehensive package of subsidised childcare, parental leave and school support goes some way in encouraging couples to have children. Indeed the measures seem to be having a small effect on the country's fertility rate, which was 1.8 children per woman in 2021 compared to the EU average of 1.53 during the same year. 'It's harder work than throwing a baby bonus and trying to think you could do a silver bullet but actually creating an ecosystem that has childcare, that has good maternity and paternity leave, has a good work-life balance – that's where France has done very well,' says Mills. However, it's clear that there is no one pro-natalist policy which will act as a catalyst to boost birth rates. While Farage's proposed Hungarian-style tax breaks look unlikely to persuade couples to have children, Mills explained that measures which addressed quality of life were likely to be more impactful. 'People need a good life, they need good jobs, be able to get a house, childcare,' says Mills. 'It's about wellbeing, it's about work-life balance. That's not as sexy … but these are the things that have been shown to be more effective.'
Telegraph
28-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Farage isn't the first leader to promise tax breaks for couples. They all failed
In 2015, then-prime minister David Cameron introduced a marriage allowance letting one spouse transfer £1,260 of their personal allowance to the other, although this is not a significant tax break – saving only up to £252 in tax per year. To claim the benefit, the lower earner must have an income below the personal allowance and the higher earner must be a basic-rate taxpayer. Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump has promised a $1,000 'baby bonus' in the hope of boosting the birth rate. But such policies have had mixed success. Some experts question whether financial giveaways are the best way to support young families, although other countries such as South Korea and Hungary have successfully used tax reforms to increase the birth rate. Jason Hollands, of the stockbroker Bestinvest, said: 'Bolstering the tax benefits of being married might play a part in addressing this but needs to be considered against other options to help people have larger families, such as making childcare more affordable.'
The Sun
27-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Nigel Farage is right, Britain MUST have more kids – we can't keep relying on sky high immigration
YESTERDAY'S Reform UK announcements on benefit spending and the family perfectly illustrated both Nigel Farage's strengths . . . and his weaknesses. He has a fantastic gift for identifying issues where the major parties are vulnerable. 3 3 The most obvious of these is, of course, immigration. But Reform's latest pivot into family policy shows the same deft touch. It also shows a willingness to tune in to the concerns of younger voters, which the Conservatives would do well to learn from. Too many Tory MPs and their aides dismiss the concerns of under-35s worried they can't afford to start a family or have more than one child. As one former adviser put it to me when I raised the issue, Britain can and should 'just import people'. Political opportunity Which is exactly what they did in the last Parliament — as immigration soared. The Conservative Party has paid dearly for such thinking as its support among younger voters (meaning anyone younger than their fifties) collapsed. Which means there is a huge political opportunity for a party which makes a serious effort to close what campaigners call the 'birth gap' — the difference between the number of children British women say they want and the number they end up having. Not only would strong pro-family measures be popular in their own right, but they are also essential to any realistic attempt to wean the state off the opiate of runaway mass immigration. Why? Because the welfare state is essentially a gigantic Ponzi scheme. Farage goads 'terrified' Starmer & says Tories are 'finished' All public spending is paid for out of taxes paid by working-age people. (This is true even where government pretends otherwise: National Insurance is not insurance, just another tax, and pensions are paid for the same way as other welfare.) An ageing population means either squeezing a smaller tax base harder and harder or importing more ready-made workers from other parts of the world. (Or, as we've seen in recent years, both.) Before the modern welfare state, everyone understood that having children was an investment in their own old age. That's why people in poorer countries still have far more offspring than those in developed nations. Modern society has lost sight of this, and unbeknown to them, many voters now expect to live in the shade of trees their children will plant. But they're not having enough children, so we have to import other people's. So far, so good. 3 But what about Farage's actual policies? Here, the Reform leader still has work to do. Take the proposal for a married couple's tax allowance, under which one spouse would be able to claim a combined personal allowance on the first £25,000 they earn. Sounds good, right? And it is — except that Reform proposes to raise the personal allowance to £20,000 so the advantage to married couples is relatively small. Allowing couples to choose to be taxed as a household, rather than individually, would be a better idea. At present a family with two parents earning £50,000 can get all their child tax credits, but one with a single earner on £61,000 or more starts to lose them. Tackling this penalty on single-income households would have the most impact. Then there's his proposal to scrap the two-child limit on support under Universal Credit. It will certainly make life extremely difficult for Sir Keir Starmer, and maybe that's the point. Labour MPs are desperate to get rid of it. But beyond the cost, there's a reason No10 hasn't got rid of it already — and that's because it's popular. Even more expensive Why? Because ordinary working families have to make extremely difficult financial decisions about having children. Prior to the cap there were two groups that didn't: The rich, and those on welfare. That offends many people's sense of fair play. A better approach to make life easier for all parents, not just those on welfare, is making childcare more affordable, and allowing families to spend childcare allowances more flexibly. That would, however, be even more expensive — and Farage's proposals to pay for his plans don't yet add up. His big savings from easy targets are wishful thinking; freeing up cash for these policies means pain elsewhere. So there is work for Reform still to do. But where the party is right is that Britons SHOULD be having more children. Indeed, we cannot afford not to.
