Overview
- Shadow chancellor Mel Stride detailed cuts focused on welfare, foreign aid reduced to 0.1% of GDP, and civil service layoffs, alongside proposals to bar most non‑UK citizens from benefits with EU settled‑status exemptions.
- Conservatives say restricting access would affect roughly 470,000 universal credit claimants and they plan to curb personal independence payments for milder mental‑health conditions in favor of treatment.
- Kemi Badenoch is expected to set a new economic rule in her Wednesday speech, stating that at least half of every pound saved will go toward reducing the deficit.
- The party is sharpening attacks on Reform UK as economically profligate, citing pledges on nationalisation and lifting the two‑child benefit cap, positioning the Conservatives as the sole champions of fiscal responsibility.
- Nigel Farage trumpeted the defection of 20 Tory councillors to Reform as a YouGov survey showed many Conservative members favor an electoral pact and question Badenoch’s leadership, which she rejects while ruling out any deal with Reform and reiterating plans to leave the ECHR despite potential trade complications.