Reform UK has unveiled a £3 billion plan to slash the price of beer by potentially 5p per pint—funded entirely by reinstating the two-child benefit cap and plunging 450,000 children back into poverty. Political scientists are calling it "mathematically dystopian," while Nigel Farage is calling it "a proper night out, sorted."
"Look, it's simple economics," explained Farage from inside an authentically weathered gastropub that charges £8.50 for fish and chips. "What's more British: feeding someone else's children, or me personally saving a fraction of a percent on my third pint of the afternoon?"
The comprehensive five-point plan includes cutting beer duty by 10%, reducing hospitality VAT to 10%, and the gradual abolition of business rates—all measures that pub landlords may or may not pass on to customers, depending on vibes.
"Within two to three years, these measures could take a pound off every pint," Farage proclaimed, before adding in a quieter voice, "assuming every single publican in Britain simultaneously decides to operate as a registered charity."
When pressed on the optics of funding cheaper alcohol by taking money from struggling families, Reform MP Lee Anderson clarified the party's position: "The loss of one pub is a loss to all of us as inheritors of a tradition dating back to Roman rule. The loss of 450,000 children having adequate nutrition is, frankly, less thematically on-brand for us."
Social policy experts pointed out that the two-child benefit cap—which Reform UK called for scrapping just nine months ago—now represents the party's preferred method of funding what amounts to a 0.625% discount on an £8 pint.
"When faced with the choice between lifting children out of poverty or making beer slightly cheaper in a way that probably won't actually happen, they've decisively chosen the latter," said political analyst Dr. Sarah Chen.
Reform UK later clarified that families who are "British and work full-time" would be exempt from the reinstated cap, though party officials became evasive when asked how this exemption squares with the entire £3 billion funding mechanism they'd just outlined. One spokesperson muttered something about "efficiency savings" before retreating to the bar.
The policy is expected to be very popular with exactly the demographic you're imagining right now.