Nigel Farage has vowed to wage "war" on Britain's benefits culture, warning he is prepared to face down riots, strikes and protests to slash the welfare bill if Reform UK wins power at the next election.
In an interview on Wednesday, the Reform UK leader said a "massive change of thought" was needed on welfare to make it affordable and tackle growing resentment among working people about the scale of handouts.
"Attitudes are going to have to harden. There's a massive, massive change of thought needed on benefits – that's going to be the biggest war of them all," he said.
"I'm sorry, but mild anxiety is not a reason to be on disability benefit – it just isn't. We can't afford it, it can't continue.
"And there'll be riots, and there'll be strikes and there'll be protests, and we know all of that, but that's what we're going to have to do – it has to be done. We just can't afford it now."
Detailed proposals costing tens of billions of pounds from the welfare budget are being finalised ahead of publication after the local elections, with the plans expected to push millions of currently inactive people back into the jobs market. Farage claimed Reform was now becoming the "party of working people."
"I now believe there's one big divide in British society... those that work and those that don't," he said.
A conversation with a Clacton constituent captured, in Farage's telling to the Daily Mail, the raw frustration driving his welfare agenda. The man had grown weary of grafting seven days a week only to find himself financially level with neighbours who stayed at home on benefits.
The man told Farage: "The b******s next door, they get up at midday, Deliveroo brings their lunch. They smoke dope all afternoon. They're as well–off as I am."
Farage added: "He actually summed up how huge numbers of people feel. And yes, on the economy, we can incentivise those in business, but we equally can't go on paying an ever bigger (welfare) bill. Socially, this will be the biggest battle that we face."
Farage also pledged to lead a cultural shift in attitudes towards work and success, accusing Chancellor Rachel Reeves of presiding over "an assault on private enterprise, an assault on business and, even worse, an assault on savings."
"We've got a country now where it's almost like if you poll public opinion, they want to punish anybody that's done well. Well, actually, we have to fight back against that," he said.
The nation's welfare bill is on course to breach £400billion annually before the decade is out — a rise of £70billion on current spending. Sickness benefits are driving much of the surge, with the bill in that category alone projected to leap from £83billion last year to £109billion by 2030 — a real-terms increase of more than 30 per cent.
Earlier this month Farage committed to keeping the pensions triple lock, saying it would be funded by "the biggest cuts to the benefits bill ever seen in the history of this country." He has also reversed his position on the two-child benefit cap, saying a Reform government would scrap Labour's £3billion decision to extend payments to thousands of jobless families.
Farage has set his sights on Personal Independence Payments, announcing plans to remove the benefit from hundreds of thousands of claimants with mild mental health conditions — a move the party says could generate savings of £9billion over time.
A further £9billion is projected to come from barring foreign nationals, including EU citizens, from accessing the benefits system, though independent experts have challenged that estimate.
