Reform UK has also spent plenty of time pitching itself against the Whitehall machine. It has proposed a major civil service headcount reduction,giving ministers the power to fire civil servants and replacing the impartial top post of cabinet secretary with a political chief of staff.
3) Backing British
Burnham wants to revive areas outside London which he argues the Westminster bubble has left behind for decades.
He’s already started work on a No. 10 Downing Street North in Manchester tasked with regenerating towns, increasing public control of utilities and expanding industry, arguing that “growth cannot be ordered from the top down.”
But Burnham has also called for industrial policy to “safeguard sovereign manufacturing and production capability … in critical sectors like steel, defense, energy, food and farming.”
Reform UK also takes a pretty forthright tone on economic sovereignty. Treasury Spokesperson Robert Jenrick says a Reform government will “unashamedly back British firms, buying British wherever possible.”
Farage also backed the nationalization of British Steel days before Keir Starmer’s government passed emergency legislation giving ministers control of its operations in April 2025.
