Yet recently, Reform UK has started to see childbearing as fertile political territory. The party’s mission — in its own words — boils down to bringing back British babies.
Britain needs a “complete 180 shift in attitudes” to improve its birth rate, Leader Nigel Farage said in an interview with the controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson at the right-wing Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in February.
“We’re trying to cut immigration drastically,” a Reform UK spokesperson told POLITICO. “At the same time, to fix that population crisis, we’re trying to encourage British people already here to have kids.”
Some experts insist government policies have little to no impact on birthrates. But Farage’s populists are backing the rhetoric with policy.
Reform UK is pledging to scrap the two-child benefit cap — a 2017 Tory policy that limits state support to a family’s first two children. The ruling Labour Party, despite pressure from its own backbenchers, has kept the cap in place, citing budget constraints.
Farage has also promised bigger tax breaks for married couples, exempting one partner from paying tax on the first £25,000 they earn. Announcing the move at a press conference, he insisted he wasn’t “moralizing,” but simply trying to make it “much easier for [families] to have children.”
A Gen Z case for babies
The party’s approach to family is one factor drawing in some of its youngest female recruits.
