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Reform's Promise

It sounds simple, almost seductive. Scrap "illegal migration", close the hotels, deport those with no right to be here - and save taxpayers £42 billion over the next decade and £243bn over 80 years. That's the promise Reform UK makes the centrepiece of its immigration policy.

But the OBR has already shown that drastic cuts to migration will be net negative for the economy. We build on this analysis to show how Reform UK's own numbers reveal not hundreds of billions of savings, but a trillion pound blackhole.

Nigel Farage's previous pledge for a hard Brexit led to trade frictions, reduced labour mobility, and low investment - and shattered EU agreements that had kept the small boats crisis at bay.

Now, our analysis suggests his new plan would strike a further blow to Britain's teetering economy.

Where Is the Opposition to Nigel Farage's Immoral Mass Deportation Plan?

Keir Starmer's Government's refusal to explicitly condemn the Reform leader's plans to tear thousands of families and communities apart is only clearing his path to Downing Street, argues Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov

In its official blueprint, Operation Restoring Justice, the party pledges to "end illegal migration" by ripping up Britain's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Refugee Convention, pushing through a new "Mass Deportation Bill", and creating a new UK Deportation Command.

Within 18 months, they say, Britain would have 24,000 new detention places and be running up to five deportation flights every day. Offshore camps on Ascension Island are floated as a fallback.

Their document claims the plan would save taxpayers "over £7 billion in five years" and £42 billion in a decade - money they say is currently squandered on asylum seekers in hotels.

The Reality

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) - the body that audits the public finances - concludes the opposite. In its March 2024 outlook, the OBR shows that cutting net migration raises Government borrowing by around £13-20 billion within five years, because migrants are mostly of prime working age, pay about £19,500 per adult per year in taxes, and generate £4.1bn a year in visa fees and surcharges.

In short, lower migration worsens the public finances, not the reverse.

Byline Times stress-tested Reform UK's numbers against the OBR's modelling. We found that instead of delivering a £42 billion windfall over a decade, the plan generates the opposite.

We found that over five years, the economy would be about £49bn smaller, while the Home Office would face £7bn in direct costs for detention, flights and enforcement, according to analysis of OBR projections.

The smaller economy also implies a £17bn shortfall in tax receipts, but this is a fiscal consequence of the GDP loss. Projected forward, by 2035, the drag rises to an economy £63-81bn smaller, plus £4-10bn in direct Exchequer costs, with £23-29bn less tax revenue embedded in the GDP loss.

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Farage claimed that their plan would save £234 billion over the lifetime of the average migrant (around 80 years), a figure taken from the Thatcherite think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). However, the CPS later withdrew the figures as "erroneous". Pressed about this, Farage doubled down, insisting the real savings would be even higher.

We do not believe it's very meaningful to project, as Reform has, over an 80-year p...