For more than 20 years, British workers have come second — undercut by cheap migrant labour, which drives down wages and our people’s quality of life.
The experiment of letting in millions of low-wage migrants, as millions of Brits languish on benefits, has failed catastrophically.
One in six working-age British people are now on out-of-work benefits.
Seven million people. That’s three million up in the last six years.
Also, in that time, we’ve let in five million migrants – many doing jobs that Britons could be doing.
The result: an exploding benefits bill. Towns and cities blighted by mass worklessness.
Children growing up with parents on welfare, instead of in the security and dignity of work.
This combination of unskilled migration and a growing number of Britons on benefits has been, and is, a fiscal, social and cultural disaster.
Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick explains how he will put British workers first and migrants second
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Under Reform, it’ll be “British Workers First, Migrants Second”.
So, today I can announce two big changes. Step one: scrap Rachel Reeves’ disastrous rise in the rate of Employers’ National Insurance — the jobs tax.
It is, in large part, why our economy has ground to a halt.
Since its introduction, unemployment is up nearly 200,000, and we have near-record youth unemployment.
A Reform Government will scrap Labour’s National Insurance rise. But we will cut it for British workers only.
This tax cut will be funded by the introduction of the Employers’ Migrant Labour Levy — and by getting Brits off welfare and into work.
We will scrap the Immigration Skills Charge and replace it with a graduated levy on employers: an annual fee for each foreign worker they employ.
The logic is simple. Say you’re running a care home with a National Living Wage vacancy.
If the migrant is hired, the taxman would collect £7,000 in taxes – but you’ll also end up paying the British candidate not hired around £8,000 on Universal Credit.
Hire the Brit, and the tax is still paid, but the £8,000 is saved.
That’s why the levy will be minor for the extremely high-skilled but clamp down hard on employers dependent on cheap foreign labour.
Every penny raised will go towards cutting employment taxes for British workers.
The era of businesses getting rich by undercutting the wages of British workers will end.
Lower taxes for British businesses doing the right thing. Lower taxes for British workers. More in work, not on welfare.
This is the country Reform will build.