How Farage’s migrant housing ban risks hitting British expats

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK plans to prioritise British-born people for social housing could spark a trade war with the EU – and end up hurting British expats, experts have warned. Oxford University Migration Observatory said that the policy would breach the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, meaning that Brussels could respond by suspending elements of the UK’s trade deal with the bloc, and could even make life harder for Brits living in the EU. On Monday, Reform unveiled a new policy to prioritise British-born workers under the age of 35 and married couples for social housing. Shorts The policy would mean that people who were born outside the country but became naturalised British citizens – potentially decades ago – would move down the queue for council homes. At a press conference on Monday, Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice said: “It’s not fair that young British working families, couples, individuals, veterans can’t go on the housing ladder when overseas nationals have come to the UK, and in a sense because of the current laws based on need rather than suitability, they’ve jumped ahead in the queue.” However, Tice appeared to concede that putting British born individuals before other British citizens would not be lawful under the current legal framework. Richard Tice, Reform UK’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy unveiled the party’s new social housing policy at a press conference in London (Photo by Zeynep Demir/Anadolu via Getty Images) The plan would likely fall foul of the Equality Act and the European Convention on Human Rights – both of which Reform has previously vowed to scrap. Asked by The i Paper whether Reform would have to change the law to implement its new social housing criteria, Tice said there were “technicalities” around the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act which a Reform government would have to look at. “We have committed to repeal the Human Rights Act,” he said. “The Equality Act, well intentioned, has actually taken us into the wrong place. So there is some change within that, but equally, there’s much that can be done and that should be done, and the current rules are not being properly applied by many of the housing authorities and the associations.” ‘A significant shift’ Ben Brindle, senior researcher at Oxford’s Migration Observatory, told The i Paper: “Restricting social housing based on place of birth would represent a significant shift, as currently the law almost never distinguishes between British citizens based on where they were born. “If a Reform government repealed the Equality Act and took the UK out of the ECHR, it would remove two key legal barriers to restricting social housing access for people born outside the UK.” But according to Brindle, the policy would still breach the UK’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, which guarantees that “EU citizens who moved to the UK before Brexit are treated equally to Brits.” And that’s where British expats come in. Anand Menon, director of the UK In A Changing Europe think-tank, said that the EU could retaliate against breaches of the Withdrawal Agreement by suspending parts of the trade deal that guarantees no tariffs between the two sides, triggering a trade war that would hit the UK economy. “Reform’s move would spark retaliation from the EU because it would breach the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, Menon said. “This retaliation could and probably would involve measures under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement that make trade with the EU more difficult. “In addition, while member states cannot breach the Withdrawal Agreement, they might respond with measures that make things tougher for Brits in their countries.” In other words: British citizens living in the EU could end up paying the price for a policy meant to help British-born people at home. Reform confident of avoiding a trade war Such a retaliation may be more likely given the housing policy is not the only one to breach the Brexit deal – a Reform policy announced earlier this month to restrict most benefits solely to Britons also falls foul of the terms. Reform has already said it is confident it could renegotiate the UK’s post-Brexit treaties with the EU to avoid a trade war. Earlier this month, Reform’s Treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, said: “I think we can negotiate with the EU a hell of a lot better than Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham will do. I trust Nigel Farage to cut a good deal with the EU because he’s a strong leader who knows what he wants.” In Monday’s press conference, Tice also set out several exceptions to the prioritisation plans when grilled by journalists. These include the children of British soldiers born overseas, domestic abuse victims, widows and widowers, and families where one parent is British. Defending the plan to prioritise married couples – despite being divorced himself – Tice said: “Marriage is a great thing, and in a sense, when people get married, we all hope that it’s going to be for life. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it doesn’t work out. But I don’t think it’s wrong to be to be ambitious and to promote marriage.” Brindle warned Reform’s policy would also likely to drive up homelessness. “Under current policies, the main impact of restricting social housing for non-UK-born people would be to shift more of them towards other government-sourced housing. This is because local authorities have separate duties to assist people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. “A future government that wanted to prevent non-citizens from receiving any housing support would also need to change local authorities’ duties, and would expect to see an increase in homelessness among the non-UK-born.”