Farage Wants to Scrap the Two Child Benefit Cap but Critics Say He Helped Create It
Nigel Farage has been causing a stir by calling for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped, a move that might sound like a push for fairness, but critics are quick to point out it was his party that helped bring it in to begin with.
The policy, introduced in 2017 under the Conservatives, limits child-related benefits to the first two children in a family. Any additional kids? No extra financial support. It’s been widely criticized for plunging hundreds of thousands of children into poverty, and now pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Keir Starmer from within his party to get rid of it altogether.
But here’s the twist. Back in 2015, UKIP – led by Farage – was actually pushing for this very limit. The party’s manifesto made it crystal clear, calling for “supporting a lower cap on benefits” and specifically suggesting child benefit should be “limited to two children for new claimants”.
That line didn’t appear out of thin air either. In 2014, the right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange floated a similar idea, suggesting a cap at four children. It proudly noted that many of its proposals had ended up in Tory manifestos. And with UKIP polling at around 12% at the time, Cameron was under serious pressure to adopt hard-line policies that would keep voters from drifting to Farage’s camp.
That year’s Conservative manifesto promised to “eliminate child poverty” while simultaneously pledging to cut or freeze certain benefits – a contradiction that became all too obvious in the years that followed. By 2019, the Child Poverty Action Group estimated that around 160,000 families had been hit by the two-child limit, most of them working households with just three kids.
Now, with the tables turned and Farage leading Reform UK from a seat in Parliament, he’s saying the cap should go. He claims it’s the cost-of-living crisis and a need for more “British-born babies” that changed his mind. But not everyone is buying that.
TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak didn’t mince his words when speaking to Byline Times. “Farage cosplays as a champion of the working class, but was the architect of a policy that pushed hundreds of thousands of children into poverty,” he said.
“Make no mistake – Farage is not on the side of working people, or of families struggling to put food on the table for their children. He’s on the side of billionaires and bad bosses.”
The real issue for critics is the convenient timing. Farage’s sudden U-turn on a policy he helped usher in is raising eyebrows, with many calling it a shameless pivot designed to score points against Labour. When asked about the change of heart during a Sky News interview, Farage insisted it had nothing to do with political opportunism.
Still, with the weight of his party’s past stance and the very real impact the cap has had on thousands of families, many aren’t convinced. Whatever the motivation, Farage is now in the awkward position of publicly denouncing a policy he once helped put on the map.
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