Reform UK's 2024 Contract with the People presented a populist right policy programme of tax cuts, spending cuts, withdrawal from international bodies and 50 per cent public ownership of utilities. Twenty three months on, the Contract is no longer the operative programme. Reform is a vehicle whose positions move with Nigel Farage personally rather than with the document it was elected on. The gap is between a published Contract and an unpublished one being written in real time.
On immigration the Contract pledged to freeze non essential immigration, pick up small boats and return them to France, lift National Insurance for foreign workers to 20 per cent, and leave the ECHR. In February 2026 Farage unveiled Operation Restoring Justice, escalating to 600,000 deportations over one parliament, disapplication of the Refugee Convention for five years, use of repurposed military sites as mass detention centres and charter removal flights. The Contract framed immigration as a control problem. The new programme reframes it as a removal operation.
On welfare the Contract banked £150 billion of annual savings partly through cuts to working age benefits and tighter sickness assessments. In May 2025 Farage pivoted leftward, pledging to scrap the two child benefit cap and reinstate the universal winter fuel allowance withdrawn by Labour. The savings the Contract banked were the operating logic for the tax cuts the Contract also promised. The reversal removes the fiscal architecture from underneath the tax cuts that depend on it. Reform has published no revised fiscal plan to replace the savings.
On utilities the Contract pledged 50 per cent public ownership of energy and water, with the remainder held by UK pension funds. By April 2025 Reform had dropped the pledge entirely. Farage pivoted to backing full nationalisation of British Steel in Scunthorpe. The headline distinctive economic policy of the 2024 Contract is no longer Reform policy.
On the NHS the Contract committed £17 billion of additional spending and to examine the French insurance based model while keeping care free at the point of delivery. In a January 2025 LBC interview Farage said he was open to anything including replacing NHS funding with an insurance based system. The Contract sold the existing model. The leader has begun to question whether to sell it at all.
On climate the Contract pledged to scrap net zero, fast track North Sea licences and end energy levies. Through 2025 the position hardened from policy rejection into open rejection of the climate science consensus. Within twelve months of the May 2025 local election wins, seven of the nine Reform led councils analysed by the Grantham Research Institute had scrapped their climate targets, three had rescinded Climate Emergency declarations, and councillors in five had expressed climate change denial in chamber. The Contract was a regulatory rollback. The 2026 record is a denial of underlying science.
On governance the Contract pledged a smaller more democratic Lords, a referendum on proportional representation and replacement of the BBC licence fee. In March 2025 Farage suspended and effectively expelled Rupert Lowe over a public disagreement. Lowe founded Restore Britain in June 2025 and registered it as a political party in February 2026. A party that promised democratic Lords reform cannot manage democratic disagreement with its own MPs.
Reform has published no detailed defence position beyond the Contract's 2.5 per cent GDP commitment, no detailed education policy beyond patriotic curriculum framing, and no detailed housing or Europe position. For a party leading national polling in 2026, the absence of positions on most policy areas government must manage is notable.
This is not a party operating the 2024 Contract. Reform has escalated immigration from freeze to mass deportation, softened welfare by reversing savings that fund tax cuts, dropped utility nationalisation entirely, opened the NHS funding model to replacement, hardened net zero rejection into climate science denial, and expelled an MP over disagreement with the leader. The Contract is not being implemented. It is being personalised. Reform is leading polls because voters prioritise the anti immigration, anti establishment message over policy coherence. Whether the programme survives the leader is unanswered because the leader is the programme.
Economy & Tax
The 2024 Contract pledged to lift the income tax personal allowance to £20,000, raise the higher rate threshold from £50,271 to £70,000, abolish stamp duty on properties below £750,000 and inheritance tax on estates below £2 million. Corporation tax would fall from 25% to 20% immediately and to 15% by year three. The party promised £150 billion in annual savings, partly from cutting waste, working age benefits and net zero subsidies, alongside 50% public ownership of utilities with the remainder held by UK pension funds.
By April 2025 Reform had dropped the pledge to nationalise water and energy utilities, a reversal from Farage's January 2025 insistence that part nationalising water would cost less than the £50bn analysts cited, while pivoting to back full nationalisation of British Steel in Scunthorpe.
NHS & Health
The Contract promised an extra £17bn a year for the NHS and to eradicate waiting lists within two years, with tax breaks for frontline doctors and nurses. It offered 20% tax relief on private healthcare and insurance payments, vouchers to allow NHS patients to use independent providers, and committed to examine the French insurance based model while keeping care free at the point of delivery.
In a January 2025 LBC interview Farage said he was open to anything including replacing NHS funding with an insurance based system modelled on France, going further than the Contract's commitment merely to examine such a model.
Immigration & Asylum
Reform pledged to freeze non essential immigration, lift National Insurance for foreign workers to 20%, pick up small boats and return them to France, and end the settlement of any illegal arrivals. Withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights was the headline enabling commitment, alongside leaving or reforming the Refugee Convention so that asylum claims from those arriving illegally would be barred.
In February 2026 Farage unveiled Operation Restoring Justice, escalating the Contract by promising to detain and deport up to 600,000 people over one parliament, disapply the Refugee Convention for five years, use repurposed military sites as mass detention centres and run charter removal flights, well beyond the 2024 freeze and return policy.
Education
The Contract promised a patriotic curriculum with mandatory pairing of British imperial history teaching with non European examples, a ban on what it called transgender ideology in schools including pronouns and social transition, and 20% tax relief on private school fees. Universities would have to offer two year degrees, student loan interest would be scrapped, and undergraduate numbers cut, with repayment terms extended to 45 years.
Climate & Energy
Reform branded net zero the greatest act of negligence and promised to scrap it, fast track new North Sea oil and gas licences, restart shale gas extraction, accelerate small modular nuclear and remove renewables levies and subsidies from energy bills. It pledged to ditch the 2050 target and end VAT on domestic fuel.
Through 2025 and 2026 the party hardened from scrapping net zero policy into open rejection of the climate science consensus, with seven of ten Reform controlled councils after the May 2025 locals dismantling local climate targets and Farage framing net zero as the prime cause of British deindustrialisation.
Housing
The Contract committed to scrap stamp duty on homes under £750,000, reverse Section 24 so landlords can deduct mortgage interest, prioritise brownfield development with fast track brownfield passports, use loose fit planning for large schemes, and abolish the existing Renters Reform proposals while tightening enforcement of current law. A First Jobs Bonus savings scheme would help young workers build a deposit.
Welfare & Work
Reform pledged large cuts to working age benefits as part of £150bn of savings, tighter fit for work assessments, and reform of disability and sickness payments to drive claimants into employment. The Contract also promised tax breaks for married couples and a focus on getting two million economically inactive people back into work.
In May 2025 Farage pivoted leftwards on transfer payments, pledging to scrap the two child benefit cap and reinstate the universal winter fuel allowance withdrawn by Labour, funding both through cuts to foreign aid, asylum hotels and net zero subsidies.
Crime & Justice
The Contract promised 40,000 more police officers over five years, zero tolerance policing of low level disorder, mandatory minimum sentences for repeat and serious offenders, and an expansion of prison capacity partly through deporting foreign national offenders. Stop and search would be increased and community sentences for persistent offenders replaced with custody.
In January 2026 Reform went beyond the Contract by pledging mandatory whole life sentences without parole for those convicted of raping a child, alongside a Farage promise to halve crime in five years and build new prisons holding an extra 12,000 places.
Defence & Foreign Policy
The Contract pledged to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP within three years and 3% within six, recruit 30,000 more service personnel, withdraw from the World Health Organisation unless reformed, and review foreign aid. Farage's stated foreign policy framing argued NATO and EU expansion had provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while still calling the invasion immoral.
In November 2025 Reform proposed cutting the UK aid budget by around 90% to £1bn, far deeper than the Contract's review language, and Farage softened on Ukraine by backing Kyiv's NATO aspirations and security guarantees, a partial reversal of his June 2024 provocation framing.
Europe
The Contract called for scrapping all retained EU law, abandoning or renegotiating the post Brexit treaties including the Windsor Framework, refusing any return to the single market or customs union, and using Brexit freedoms to deregulate. Withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights sat alongside the EU exit as the second pillar of disengagement from European legal structures.
Constitution & Devolution
The Contract pledged to replace the House of Lords with a smaller more democratic second chamber, hold a referendum on switching from first past the post to proportional representation, abolish the BBC licence fee on grounds of institutional bias, and conduct a deep cut of the civil service. On devolution Reform previously argued for scrapping the Senedd model in favour of a directly elected Welsh First Minister accountable to Welsh MPs.
The March 2025 suspension and effective expulsion of MP Rupert Lowe, who had called Reform a protest party led by the Messiah and was backed by Elon Musk as a rival leader, exposed that internal party governance remained personally controlled by Farage rather than the democratised structures the Contract implied, and led Lowe to found Restore Britain in June 2025.