Green MP Ellie Chowns challenged the thrust of Reform’s entire game on BBC Question Time.
“It’s inequality”
Chowns took apart the notion that immigration is to blame for the UK’s woes:
Reform UK, before it was the Brexit Party, before when it was UKIP, has been busy for many years fermenting this idea that immigration is the problem in this country. It’s completely untrue. Inequality is the problem in this country. The housing problems are… because we have had 40 years of governments not investing in housing. The health problems… are because we’ve had governments… failing to invest in our public services, presiding over decline. It’s inequality.
Ellie Chowns, "Reform UK, before it was the Brexit Party, before when it was UKIP, has been busy for many years fermenting this idea that immigration is the problem in this country"
"It's completely untrue"
"Inequality is the problem in this country"
"The housing problems is… pic.twitter.com/XYVFIyibVJ
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) February 12, 2026
Indeed, Oxfam found in 2023 that 1% of Britons have more wealth than 70% of the country.
It’s not foreign born people who are the issue — it’s the super rich migrating their finances to avoid tax and Labour — doing nothing to fix the issue. Tax doesn’t fund public spending but it can help control inflation through reducing the amount of pounds available.
Meanwhile, net zero immigration would actually contract the UK economy by 3.6%. Chowns’ is not wrong to diagnose inequality as the core issue — one compounded by the economic disparity such a contraction would cause. People cannot afford to have children, driving dependence on imported workers.
Another reason inequality is the core issue is that it literally caused the 2008 financial crash. That’s because people didn’t have enough money to keep up with inflated house prices. So banks gave them excessive credit — known as sub-prime mortgages — and house prices relative to income have worsened since. No wonder Chowns received such applause on BBC Question Time.
High inequality: low demand
We must also remember that inequality depresses demand for products and services. People currently living in poverty would spend more if they had the security of home ownership, while excess wealth at the top stagnates or inflates the value of assets.
£1 million sitting in a bank account would be spent by hundreds of less well off people, but if just one person has it no economic growth happens. It doesn’t necessarily mean everything should be entirely economically equal, but the level of disparity today is simply ridiculous. On top of that, immigration adds further demand for products and services, expanding the economy.
Reform’s whole mantra is completely wrong — economically and morally. Chowns got right to the heart of it on BBC Question Time and the audience thanked her for it.
Featured image via the Canary
By James Wright
From Canary via This RSS Feed.