On the 3rd of February 2026, Nigel Farage, Leader of Reform UK, set out a plan to “save Britain’s pubs.” Whilst it is a seemingly noble goal to try to save the pubs we all love, the way Reform wants to go about this is bizarre.
The party announced a five-point plan to support pubs. Firstly; they would reduce VAT to the hospitality sector by 10%. Secondly, they would scrap the National Insurance increases in hospitality. Thirdly, they would cut beer duty by 10%. Fourth, they would abolish business rates. And lastly, they would change the regulations to beer orders.
On the surface, these policies seem normal, and to a certain extent, reasonable. But when you start looking at what these policies would mean in reality, it is clear that something more sinister is behind it.
The reduction in VAT, National Insurance, beer duty, and business rates would all be incredibly expensive, or more precisely, £3 billion. So where would they find the money? Well, it would all come from a re-introduction of the two-child benefit cap, something they wanted abolished only a few months ago, after wanting to keep it in place, after wanting to abolish it, after supporting the cap.
What is specifically bizarre about the five-point plan is that it would hardly affect the cost of a pint. The Telegraph, a newspaper which supports the policy, stated themselves that the reduction in beer duty by 10% would only reduce the cost of a pint of beer by 5p.
It is harder to assess how much of a reduction in the cost of beer there would be in the reduction of VAT, National Insurance, and business rates because they all vary from place to place. But the bottom line is clear – forcing 540,000 children into poverty for a slightly cheaper pint is worth it according to Reform UK.
This policy has further ramifications, however. Whilst it is fully funded, it makes little economic sense. The current economic climate does not allow for much spending outside of the bare necessities. This means that a small reduction in the cost of a pint is not significant enough to boost the local economy, especially when significant amounts of money are being taken away from millions of families across the country. When people have little to spend, the economy stagnates as less money is being invested. Taking money away from millions of families to slightly decrease the cost of a pint of beer would not help the economy but rather worsen it.
Additionally, the fact that millions would be worse off would put the pubs in a worse position. With less money comes less customers, leading to lower profits and a greater strain on the business.
Whilst it is absolutely true that more needs to be done to help support our local pubs, that should not be off the backs of the poorest in society. And any policy that seeks to help small businesses by making people worse off is ridiculous at best and cruel at worst.
This policy is not only indicative of Reform’s incompetence and cruelty, but also a signal to their working-class façade. Farage is desperate for the public to view him as a normal man, “one of us,” and someone you would love to have a chat with in the pub. However, Farage went to Dulwich College, a private school, as a teenager and later became a commodities trader in the City of London. Nothing here shows him to be “one of us,” nor a member of the working class, but rather a member of the economic elite. He constantly shows himself in pubs to reinforce this false working-class image when in reality he has no connection to the working-class. By creating a grand policy to “save the pubs,” he reinforces this image, but in reality, he is just trying to make the working-class poorer by taking away benefits that would keep over half-a-million out of poverty.
This policy is cruel, economically illiterate, and primarily part of a media strategy to make Nigel Farage, one of the most divisive politicians in the UK, more preferrable.
