Kemi Badenoch takes aim at Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer for ‘race to the bottom’ over welfare handouts as Tory leader accuses rivals of asking taxpayers to ‘fund unlimited child support for others’
Kemi Badenoch has blasted Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer for being in a ‘race to the bottom’ over welfare handouts.
In a feisty attack on the Reform and Labour leaders, Mrs Badenoch said the pair believed in getting taxpayers to fund ‘unlimited child support for others’ by scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
Writing in the Mail, the Tory leader branded the benefit unfair and unsustainable, because welfare ‘traps people’ and ‘drives up costs for everyone’.
Instead, she said the Conservatives were now the ‘only serious party of sound money’ and warned that Britain ‘can’t afford the fantasy economics of Starmer and Farage’, who ‘treat economics like a branch of showbiz’.
Mrs Badenoch’s intervention came after Mr Farage this week pledged a spending splurge of up to £85 billion – including generous benefit increases.
The Reform leader said his party would scrap the two-child benefit cap because ‘it’s the right thing to do’, and would fully reverse the winter fuel payment cut.
And yesterday, following months of pressure from his own MPs, the Prime Minister gave a hint that he too could scrap the two-child cap after previously ruling it out.
Mrs Badenoch said the country was facing a choice between ‘sound money and soothing delusions’, because ‘Keir Starmer can’t tell you what he stands for, Nigel Farage can’t tell you how he’ll pay for anything’.
Writing in the Mail, the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch (above) branded the benefit unfair and unsustainable, because welfare ‘traps people’ and ‘drives up costs for everyone’
She warned that Britain ‘can’t afford the fantasy economics of Starmer and Farage’
To keep taxes low, the Tory leader added, ‘we must cut waste and end the inherent unfairness where some work ever harder for smaller rewards – to pay for others’ benefits’.
‘We’re now the only major political party prepared to take a serious look at the welfare state,’ she wrote.
Mrs Badenoch said her party believed in ‘personal responsibility’, and welfare as a ‘safety net’ rather than a ‘way of life’. She wrote: ‘This week we have seen Labour and Reform in a race to the bottom to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
‘Apparently, Starmer and Farage now believe in getting taxpayers – many of whom are struggling to raise their own children or choosing not to have them in the first place – to fund unlimited child support for others.
‘That’s not fair, it’s not sustainable and it’s not even compassionate. Welfare traps people, builds dependency and it drives up costs for everyone.
‘While Labour and Reform are content to make promises they can’t keep, I won’t. The Conservatives are going to be the party of sound money and fiscal responsibility once again.’
In his speech on Tuesday, Mr Farage insisted that while he does not support a ‘benefits culture’, scrapping the two-child benefit cap would make having children ‘just a little bit easier’ for lower-paid workers.
‘It’s not a silver bullet, it doesn’t solve all of those problems. But it helps them,’ he said.
Mr Farage has said he will commit to ending the two-child cap, which was introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, and re-instate the blanket winter fuel allowance (stock image)
But his spending plans have come under fire this week, with critics saying they have been based on ‘implausible’ calculations.
Alongside his pledges on the two-child benefit cap and winter fuel allowance, Mr Farage also vowed to raise the threshold for the basic rate of income tax to £20,000.
But the sums he said the party had identified as potential savings to pay for the handouts were soon debunked, as economists warned that the proposals were on a par with Liz Truss’s mini-budget ‘and likely much larger’.
Mrs Badenoch warned that ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘magic money tree’ is back but this time it has a Reform UK sticker on it’.
Mr Farage faced further questions yesterday after it emerged that he was in Las Vegas last night to speak at a conference promoting Bitcoin.
Yesterday, a rattled Sir Keir used a seven-minute speech to attack the Reform leader’s policies, warning his plans would cost ‘billions upon billions upon billions’.
Behind in the polls, the Prime Minister said of Mr Farage: ‘Can you trust him? Can you trust him with your future? Can you trust him with your jobs? Can you trust him with your mortgages, your pensions, your bills?
‘He gave the answer on Tuesday. A resounding no.’
The PM (above) hit back, saying: ‘I don’t need lessons from Nigel Farage about the issues that matter most to working people in this country’
Mr Farage had pitched Reform UK as ‘the party of working people’ rather than Labour, and accused Sir Keir of having no connection to the working class.
But the PM hit back, saying: ‘I don’t need lessons from Nigel Farage about the issues that matter most to working people in this country.’
Asked why he was focusing so much on Reform UK, the Prime Minister claimed the Tories had ‘run out of road’.
He said the choice for voters was now between Labour and Reform UK, but Reform’s chairman Zia Yusuf said Sir Keir’s speech in the North-West showed it was ‘panic stations at Labour’.
Labour is also looking at lifting the two-child cap, with an announcement expected this autumn. Sir Keir initially dodged questions about the policy yesterday, saying he was looking at ‘all options’ to drive down child poverty.
‘There isn’t a single bullet, but I’m absolutely determined that we will drive this down, and that’s why we’ll look at all options, always, of driving down child poverty,’ he told reporters at a glass factory in Merseyside.
The cap prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third or additional child born after April 2017, but axing it would cost around £3.5 billion.
Mr Farage hit back at Sir Keir, accusing him of stoking ‘Project Fear 2.0’ – the name Brexiteers gave to Remain scaremongers during the Brexit campaign.
‘In the last 24 hours I have been subjected to political attacks by everybody from Keir Starmer to (Scottish First Minister) John Swinney because Reform UK are winning,’ he told The Sun.
‘The Prime Minister is now resorting to dirty tricks borrowed from the 2016 referendum campaign. This is Project Fear 2.0.’
Responding to Mrs Badenoch’s comments, a Reform UK spokesman said last night: ‘We don’t comment on minor parties.’
