Kemi Badenoch has taken a swipe at Nigel Farage after he claimed Reform UK would save £25 billion a year if it were in power.
The leader of the populist party told reporters today that his Budget would target EU citizens and cut aid to some of the world’s poorest countries.
Welfare benefits paid to EU citizens living in the UK would be scrapped, along with around 90 per cent of Britain’s overseas aid budget, leaving it at just £1bn a year.
Penalising EU citizens is not something that should be considered, the Conservative Party leader told GB News’s Katherine Forster, branding her political foe's ploy “unfair”.
She insisted her party is not shying away from its commitment to reform a bloated welfare state, saying they are instead taking a “tough, but fair” approach.
Mrs Badenoch accused Mr Farage of piggybacking off the Tories by adopting their policies and then adding “sawdust”.
“I think it’s very amusing that three months after we make announcements, he repeats them but adds a little bit of sawdust,” she said.
“If you want to run a Government, you need to do the work. You cannot copy other people’s homework. You’re getting it wrong.
Kemi Badenoch took a swipe at the Reform UK leader
|GB NEWS / PA
“It’s going to be unfair on millions of people out there.”
Speaking alongside his party’s policy chief Zia Yusuf, Mr Farage called on Rachel Reeves to commit to slashing foreign aid in her upcoming Budget.
The Chancellor is scrambling to fill a black hole in the public finances ahead of her November 26 statement.
A Labour spokesman said: “Nigel Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up, and he’d leave British taxpayers footing a hefty bill.”
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Katherine Forster sat down with the Tory leader
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Mr Yusuf accused Ms Reeves of “treachery” as he set out Reform’s proposed measures.
He said raising taxes on British people while refusing to cut spending on foreign nationals is “treachery” and “appalling”.
“British people are sick and tired of it,” he said.
“We’re pleading with Rachel Reeves: let’s enact these ideas and save the British people £25 billion.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce the autumn budget next week | REUTERSThe Chancellor had been expected to breach a Labour manifesto pledge by increasing income tax, but it was revealed last week that those plans had been abandoned.
Ms Reeves is said to have caved under pressure from voters and Labour MPs, and is now looking at how she can balance the books with a series of smaller measures.
Among them might be a tax on milkshakes, The Telegraph reports, with Ms Reeves said to be considering ending an exemption that milk-based drinks have from the levy on soft drinks.
The Soft Drinks Industry Levy is currently applicable only to soft drinks with added sugar.
Producers pay at least 18p per litre on drinks containing 5g or more of sugar per 100ml.
While the levy does not cover dairy-based drinks, Ms Reeves is considering ending that exemption and reducing the threshold to 4g of sugar per 100ml.
The Conservatives were quick to criticise the idea, with Ms Reeves’s counterpart Mel Stride saying the Chancellor was “moving the goalposts” for an industry that has already made significant changes to comply with new regulations.
“It will see businesses that played by the rules punished,” he warned.
“Products will suddenly be dragged into the tax net, all to save Rachel Reeves’s skin.”