Reform UK looks set to continue its anti-worker, pro-billionaire, policies in full swing after Nigel Farage spent yesterday announcing, amongst other policies, that he thinks the national minimum wage for young people should probably be cut.
“There’s an argument the minimum wage is too high for younger workers,” Farage said.
“Particularly given that we’ve lowered the level at which NIC is paid to £5,000 a year.”
Urging the Chancellor to “do something” about it, Farage said that she should “do one or the other, either lift the cap at which NI is due, or lower the minimum wage…”
For reference, the current minimum wage per hour rates are hardly luxurious:
- £12.21 (aged 21 and over)
- £10 (aged 18 to 20)
- £7.55 (aged under 18)
- £7.55 (apprentice rate)
All of those are below what the Living Wage Foundation calculates you need per hour given the actual cost of modern-day living. They put the “real living wage” at £13.45 per hour for most of the UK, and £14.80 if you’re in London.
Conversely though, at the same time as actively trying to further impoverish the everyday worker they pretend to respect, if you are one of the tiny percentage of young people who are already earning a massive salary, £100k or up, then Reform would like to give you even more money.
He called for tax cuts for “young professionals” earning more than £100,000 a year, saying that they were leaving the country due to “this hard left socialist dogma that it’s popular to tax the rich”.
It is actually popular to tax the rich. At least at times like these where there is such a disconnect between the everyday experiences of the average person in the street and the incomprehensibly wealthy top percentage of society by wealth. Even some of the already very rich believe they themselves should be taxed more – see for example the Patriotic Millionaires.
These latest pronouncements are simply a continuation of a campaign to transfer wealth from the majority of everyday people in the UK currently struggling through a cost of living crisis into the ever-expanding pockets of the unpatriotic billionaires that Farage admires so much.