Robert Jenrick stood before reporters in London on Monday and announced a policy that would tear up a key plank of the Brexit deal: forcing EU citizens who have lived in Britain for years to potentially lose their jobs and be forced to leave the country. The Reform UK Treasury spokesman said companies employing foreign workers would have to pay higher national insurance and a “migrant labour levy” under a Nigel Farage government, with the aim of reversing last year’s National Insurance rise for British workers.
“This ends the cheap migrant labour racket once and for all,” Jenrick declared, as he outlined a graduated levy that would hit lower-paid jobs hardest. For a foreign worker employed full-time at the minimum wage – an annual salary of £24,784 for those over 21 – the levy would be £3,750. That would drop to £1,500 for workers earning £50,000 a year, and to £500 for those on £100,000. Yet Jenrick declined to specify the exact proposed rates, calling it “irresponsible” to do so with up to three years before the next election.
“Reform UK pledges a levy on foreign workers to fund NI cuts for British staff, risking Brexit deal collapse.”
The party’s plan would reduce the rate of NI paid by employers on British workers’ wages from 15% to 13.8%, undoing the rise brought in by the Labour government last year. But the reversal would only apply to British nationals; the higher rate would remain for foreign staff, in a move Reform estimates would cost the Treasury £11.2bn. The party later said it was confident the levy would raise more than that, and would also look to reduce the threshold at which employers start paying the tax.
Crucially, Jenrick admitted that EU citizens who were given settled status after Brexit will not be counted as “British workers” under the policy. Monique Hawkins, acting chief executive of the3million, which represents EU citizens with settled status, said: “The proposals announced by Reform UK make a mockery of the promises that EU citizens were given when the UK left the European Union. … This is an international treaty … not something which can so cavalierly be discarded on the whim of racist politics.” Hawkins warned the plan creates a “two-tier workforce, where people are judged not on their contribution but on where they come from.”
Reform has already pledged to abolish the right of migrants to permanently settle after five years. Jenrick acknowledged the tax base for the levy would “rapidly shrink”, but argued that savings in benefits paid to unemployed British nationals who would be offered jobs would compensate. The policy is likely to hit sectors such as retail, hospitality and manufacturing hardest, as well as private care companies that were not shielded from Labour’s NI rise. Jenrick suggested such firms should raise salaries to recruit British workers instead.
The plan, which includes cancelling the visas of millions of migrants in low-paid jobs, could also mean the UK’s post-Brexit deal with the EU collapses, triggering a potential trade war and new tariffs. With the demarcation lines over Brexit being redrawn a decade after the referendum, Reform is betting that “British workers first, migrant workers second” will resonate at the ballot box.