Nigel Farage drops Reform UK pledge to nationalise water and energy companies just months after insisting it would 'cost a lot less'

Reform UK has scrapped its pledge to part-nationalise water and energy companies, with Nigel Farage's party rewriting its stance on utilities.

At the 2024 General Election, Reform had promised a "new ownership model for critical national infrastructure" in which the state and pension funds would own half each.

Last summer, Mr Farage reiterated said he was determined to bring half of the fraught UK water industry into public ownership, adding it would cost "a lot less" than the £50billion touted by experts.

However, a party spokesman has now admitted to the Financial Times the policy has been dropped, pointing to a speech by Mr Farage in November where he scrapped his previous plans for £90billion of tax cuts.

A spokesman said: "Nigel has said that the Contract with the People, the 2024 manifesto, and in particular the fiscal pledges within that, are no longer party policy.

"Other parties are not continually held to their previous election manifestos...There will be scope for greater state involvement in utilities under Reform.

"We will consider strategic stakes or using the government’s balance sheet to fix broken markets."

One source close to the party told the FT the party's new Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick was bringing his "small c conservative" instincts to Reform’s policies and shifting back to a "small state" economic agenda.

The most recent YouGov polling from suggests there is support for bringing energy companies back into public ownership, with 35 per cent of adults "strongly supporting" nationalisation.

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