What has the BBC ever done for us? If you’re Reform UK, the answer would appear to be ‘credulously report absurd claims made by the party on the homepage of its website’.
The corporation came in for criticism over the weekend for printing as fact self-styled ‘shadow chancellor’ Robert Jenrick’s bag-of-a-fag-packet claims that his plans for welfare reform – banning foreigners from claiming benefits – would save more than £50 billion.
It ran the ‘news’ on its homepage under the headline ‘Reform UK plan would overhaul welfare system with £50bn in savings’, outlining how a Jenrick Treasury would ban foreign nationals from receiving housing benefit, pension credit, jobseeker’s allowance, child benefit, free childcare and disability benefits.
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As rumblings began over why the Beeb was giving credence to such a palpably nonsense figure, the headline magically changed to ‘Reform UK plans to overhaul welfare system to save £50bn’, which still implied that the policy was achievable. Hours later it changed again, this time to ‘Reform promises £50bn welfare bill cut with changes to disability payments for millions’.
Jenrick’s plans are, as all the other parties noted, scrabbled-together nonsense. Newly-arrived immigrants can’t claim benefits as UK visas are issued with a ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) clause. Welfare can only be claimed by those who stay for at least five years and qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain status – and when they do, 96 percent go one to be approved for a UK passport.
Five million foreign nationals with Indefinite Leave to Remain are entitled to welfare – but 4.3 million of these are EU nationals who have lived here for years and are entitled to full access to UK benefits under the “oven ready” Brexit deal agreed by a Conservative government Jenrick served in. Good luck getting the EU to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement on that point – and, even if it did, 1.3m Brits living in the EU would likely lose their access to benefits in their host countries.
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That leaves around 700,000 non-EU foreign nationals with Indefinite Leave to Remain – who currently make up just 2.6 percent of claims. Back to the fag packet for Bobby J!
As Richard Sambrook, a former director of BBC News, wrote on Bluesky: “BBC’s coverage of Reform’s welfare plans is frankly bizarre. Headlines in [the News at] Ten, leading on some radio networks. Reform are not even the official opposition and the plans have less credibility than Count Binface.
“Will BBC News do the same for Lib Dem and Greens policy two years out from an election?”. Rats in a Sack thinks it knows the answer to that one!
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