{"id":513079,"date":"2026-04-04T20:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/513079\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T20:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:04:16","slug":"farages-triple-lock-decision-will-condemn-the-right-to-irrelevance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/513079\/","title":{"rendered":"Farage\u2019s triple lock decision will condemn the Right to irrelevance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The worst message a party can send is not living up to its name. When the Conservatives failed to conserve and Labour betrayed the working class, disaster followed. That should have been a warning to Reform UK, but with his big policy announcement<\/a> this week, Nigel Farage has committed his party to the status quo.<\/p>\n

Farage promised that a Reform government would maintain the triple lock, the guarantee that the state pension rises each year with average earnings, inflation, or by 2.5% \u2014 whichever is highest. This is bad news. According<\/a> to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the overall effect since 2010 has been to increase the state pension at a faster rate than the growth in average earnings. This unearned pensioner bonus is now costing the country \u00a312 billion every year \u2014 a cost that mostly falls on the shoulders of working-age taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The graying of the population means that the burden can only get heavier. As recently as last November, Farage\u2019s deputy Richard Tice felt able to question the triple lock, describing<\/a> it as part of the \u201cdifficult conversations\u201d the country needs to have about its economic future. In February, Farage himself suggested<\/a> the policy was \u201cup for debate\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the debate is clearly over. A blatantly unsustainable policy introduced by the Tories when David Cameron was prime minister and George Osborne was chancellor is now to be protected at all costs by a party calling itself \u201cReform\u201d.<\/p>\n

Note that Farage is willing to make tough decisions when it comes to the working-age population. He\u2019s just promised<\/a> \u201cthe biggest cut to the benefits bill ever seen\u201d and, late last year, he abandoned<\/a> Reform\u2019s previous platform of tax cuts galore. Why, then, are pensioners to be exempted from Reform\u2019s commitment to fiscal responsibility?<\/p>\n

Farage\u2019s own explanation is disingenuous in the extreme. The people to whom pensions are being paid \u201care those who have actually worked and paid into the system\u201d, he claimed<\/a>. As he must know, the state pension is not contributory \u2014 it is paid out of current Government revenue. That is generated from an overall tax burden that is higher now than it has been for decades. It will also fall upon a working-age population that has to cope with spiraling<\/a> student loan repayments and sky-high<\/a> housing costs. For Farage to imply that pensioners deserve their special treatment because they have made a greater contribution is to twist the truth to breaking point.<\/p>\n

But, of course, this has nothing to do with fairness, or financial responsibility, and everything to do with who votes for Reform. Unlike the main populist parties in France<\/a> or Germany<\/a>, Reform\u2019s support is heavily skewed<\/a> to older voters and comparatively marginal among the youngest sections of the electorate.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the party is still locked in a life-and-death struggle with the Tories \u2014 whose own pandering to pensioners has left them with a similarly-aged voter base. However, unlike the Tories, Reform\u2019s support skews toward the least financially secure households. In other words, Reform\u2019s position in the polls is built upon the voters who derive the greatest benefit from the triple lock.<\/p>\n

And, so, even more than Osborne 15 years ago, Farage has found himself deciding between short-term electoral gain and the long-term viability of the British Right. He has made his choice, and the voters of the future will make theirs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The worst message a party can send is not living up to its name. When the Conservatives failed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,35854,9608,4176,420,1634,633,4174,4175,70,8183,56,1955,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-513079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-conservatives","10":"tag-david-cameron","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-keir-starmer","13":"tag-labour","14":"tag-nigel-farage","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance","17":"tag-reform-uk","18":"tag-triple-lock","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-uncategorized","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}