Reform UK proposes stripping EU citizens of benefit rights in Brexit renegotiation plan

Nigel Farage has set out a plan to renegotiate the Brexit withdrawal agreement in order to strip EU citizens living in the United Kingdom of their right to claim benefits, a move that would overturn a central pillar of the 2020 treaty signed by Boris Johnson. Speaking at a press conference alongside policy chief Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK leader argued the existing deal was 'unfairly one-sided' and said his party would halt universal credit payments to all foreign nationals after a 'reasonable' three-month notice period if it won the next general election, due by 2029.

The benefit proposal and its fiscal claims

The centrepiece of Reform's announcement is the claim that restricting universal credit to British citizens alone would save £6.4 billion in the current financial year, rising to £10 billion by the end of the decade. The party cites provisional government statistics published in July showing that EU nationals made up 9.7% of universal credit claimants in June 2025. A document circulated to journalists argued the withdrawal agreement had been 'one-sided' because more Europeans were claiming benefits in the UK than British citizens were claiming on the continent.

The Office for National Statistics figures represent the first time the government has published a breakdown of universal credit claimants by nationality. Reform's calculation assumes that the entire 9.7% share, covering an estimated 600,000 claimants, would be removed from the roll, though the party has not published its underlying methodology. The £6.4bn figure also assumes no behavioural response, such as affected individuals leaving the UK or moving into work, and no legal challenge to the retrospective removal of acquired rights.

What the withdrawal agreement actually guarantees

The withdrawal agreement's citizens' rights provisions, negotiated over 18 months and ratified by both the UK and EU parliaments, guarantee that EU citizens legally resident in the UK before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020 retain equal access to social security benefits, healthcare and pensions on the same basis as British nationals. The same protections apply to British citizens living in EU member states. The agreement also establishes a joint committee and arbitration mechanism to oversee implementation, with the European Court of Justice retaining a role in interpreting citizens' rights provisions for an initial eight-year period.

Farage conceded in a BBC interview after the press conference that renegotiation would not be easy, but argued the UK remained 'a crucial market for the European Union' and therefore held leverage. Asked about potential EU retaliation, he said: 'We can retaliate with tariffs. Two can play that game. I don't want to do that. But you need to have a renegotiation to get a fair reset with the European Union.'

Conservative and Labour responses

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, speaking at a rival pre-Budget event, dismissed the idea of reopening the withdrawal agreement as 'completely ridiculous'. She said: 'We spent a lot of time negotiating those rights, not just for EU citizens in this country, but British citizens in other countries of the EU.' Badenoch added that 'a lot of pain and effort' had gone into the settlement and warned that unpicking it would jeopardise the reciprocal protections enjoyed by an estimated 1.2 million British nationals living in the EU.

Labour chair Anna Turley went further, arguing that Reform's plan risked a 'trade war with Europe' and would undo the government's efforts to reduce trade frictions through a series of new sectoral deals with the EU. The Starmer administration has negotiated veterinary agreements, a mutual recognition deal for professional qualifications and a security pact since taking office, all of which rely on the stable foundation of the withdrawal agreement and the Windsor Framework.

Foreign aid, NHS surcharge and disability benefits

Beyond the benefit changes, Reform set out a package of spending cuts totalling around £20 billion annually. The most dramatic is a legally binding cap on overseas aid at £1 billion per year, a reduction of roughly 93% from the £14 billion spent in 2024. Of that £14 billion, just under £3 billion went on asylum seeker accommodation within the UK, expenditure that counts as official development assistance under OECD rules but does not leave the country. Reform says it would allocate £750 million to maintain membership of bodies such as the UN and World Bank, with the remainder directed to Ukraine and a 'genuine disaster relief' fund.

The immigration health surcharge, paid by visa applicants to access the NHS, would rise from £1,035 to £2,718 per year, a 162% increase intended to raise £5 billion annually. The surcharge was last increased in February 2024, from £624 to £1,035, with the government arguing it should reflect the actual cost of NHS usage by migrants. Reform's proposed level would exceed most estimates of average per capita NHS expenditure.

A further £3.5 billion would be saved by removing personal independence payments (PIP), a non-means-tested disability benefit, from claimants with what the party describes as 'non serious anxiety issues'. The policy document does not define this threshold, nor does it explain how it would be assessed without reintroducing the kind of face-to-face assessments that the current government has sought to reduce. Disability charities have previously warned that tightening PIP eligibility risks excluding people with fluctuating or invisible conditions.

Tax cuts rowback and fiscal credibility

Reform pledged tax cuts worth around £90 billion a year at the 2024 general election, funded by a mix of spending reductions and growth assumptions that the Institute for Fiscal Studies described as 'highly optimistic'. Earlier this month, Farage rowed back on that commitment, telling reporters that 'substantial tax cuts' were not 'realistic' given the state of public finances. The latest package of £20 billion in identified savings falls well short of the £90 billion target, even before accounting for the cost of the party's other commitments, including increased defence spending and a rise in the personal allowance.

The timing of the announcement, days before Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivers her first Budget, is deliberate. Yusuf argued that Reform's blueprint would 'lessen the need for tax hikes by making foreign nationals bear the brunt before British citizens were asked to make sacrifices'. Reeves is widely expected to raise employer national insurance contributions and adjust capital gains tax, among other measures, to close what the Treasury describes as a £22 billion fiscal hole inherited from the previous administration.

Legal and practical obstacles

Any attempt to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement would require the agreement of the EU27, the European Parliament and ratification by national parliaments in several member states. The EU has consistently refused to reopen the citizens' rights chapter, viewing it as a settled guarantee that underpins the entire post-Brexit relationship. Legal experts note that the agreement's arbitration mechanism allows either side to suspend proportionate obligations if the other breaches the treaty, but unilateral termination of citizens' rights would almost certainly trigger that process.

Domestically, the policy would face immediate judicial review on grounds of discrimination, proportionality and the protection of legitimate expectations. The European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act, protects against discrimination on grounds of nationality in the enjoyment of Convention rights, and the Supreme Court has previously ruled that acquired social security rights cannot be removed retrospectively without clear parliamentary intent.