Reform UK will propose stripping almost all state benefits from foreign nationals living in Britain, including EU citizens with settled status, in a welfare policy paper due to be published on Monday — a move that would require renegotiating the UK's Brexit withdrawal agreement and could see British expatriates in the EU lose equivalent rights.
The plans, trailed to the BBC, the Press Association, the Guardian and ITV News ahead of publication, form part of a package the party claims would cut more than £50bn a year from the welfare bill. Robert Jenrick, Reform's finance spokesperson, set out the argument in the Sunday Telegraph, accusing the current system of "suicidal empathy" and describing it as "a strange perversion of compassion".
"Forcing British workers to pay for the benefits of foreigners is not just economically illiterate but plain immoral," Jenrick said.
Reform had previously pledged only to bar foreign nationals from universal credit. The new proposals extend the ban to housing benefit, pension credit, jobseeker's allowance, child benefit, free childcare and disability payments, with the party estimating savings of around £21bn a year by the fifth year of the scheme. According to the Guardian, foreign-born parents of British-born children would retain entitlement to child benefit and free school meals.
The party has acknowledged the risk of reciprocal action, pricing in £500m to cover Britons returning from the EU and claiming welfare here — a figure drawn from Reform's own document and not independently verified.
The legal obstacle is substantial. Rights held by EU citizens who were resident before Brexit are guaranteed under Part Two of the Withdrawal Agreement, an international treaty binding on both sides, and include access to benefits such as universal credit. Analysts at UK in a Changing Europe note that unilateral action could trigger arbitration, with penalties and, in the event of continued non-compliance, the suspension of obligations under other agreements — including the trade deal.
The numbers are contested. Department for Work and Pensions statistics published in July 2025 show 9.6% of universal credit claimants held EU Settlement Scheme status, against 83.8% in the UK, Ireland and right of abode category. Researchers have found EUSS status-holders are the foreign-national group most likely to be both in work and claiming universal credit — low-paid workers topping up wages. More than 5.8 million people had been granted status under the scheme by the end of 2025.
Reform's own published policy FAQ states that "those with EU settled status are not in scope of the policy" in respect of losing that status, while confirming their benefit entitlement would change — an apparent tension the party has yet to clarify.
Alongside the foreign nationals measures, the paper proposes abolishing personal independence payment and the health element of universal credit for working-age adults, replacing them with a "Health Security Allowance" restricted to the "gravely ill and severely challenged". Lower-level support would move to council-managed "Disability Support Accounts" covering equipment, adaptations and transport. Employers would meet the cost of the first two years of sick pay, with firms of more than five staff required to insure, offset by a cut to employer national insurance contributions. Estimates of the disability savings vary between reports, at £20bn and £22bn.
A Labour spokesman said the plans "would mean ripping up the UK's withdrawal agreement with the EU, plunging the UK back into years of Brexit renegotiations", while a party spokeswoman called the £50bn figure "fantasy economics". The Conservatives described the announcement as "cobbled together", pointing to their own £23bn welfare proposals. Green deputy leader Mothin Ali accused parties of competing over "who can punch down the hardest".
None of the figures has been costed by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The full paper is expected on Monday.
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