Nigel Farage pledged that Reform would scrap air passenger duty on short-haul flights for family holidays at a press conference today. The Reform leader said the move would help families take a break amid the cost-of-living crisis and hailed it as a Brexit benefit.
Speaking at Heathrow alongside Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick, Mr Farage said: “It’s not just that it will make people’s holidays cheaper but it is also the fact that it is a Brexit benefit and not something we could do as members of the EU.
“I hope Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are listening to that particular point.”
Mr Jenrick said the move would save an average family £45 on their flights.
Nigel Farage makes Reform announcement in major Brexit benefit
Nigel Farage has used Reform UK’s economic agenda to highlight what the party describes as one of the practical benefits of Brexit, promising changes that it says would reduce costs for families travelling abroad.
The announcement centres on air passenger duty, with Reform proposing to abolish the tax on short-haul flights for families travelling with children if it enters government.
Farage has described the proposal as a “Brexit benefit”, while Reform’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said the policy would remove what he called a “family holiday tax”. The party said the change could save families around £45 on international short-haul flights or £48 on domestic flights.
The announcement illustrates how Reform is attempting to turn its continued opposition to closer European Union alignment into a broader programme of post-Brexit policy.
Rather than focusing exclusively on constitutional questions, Farage’s party is increasingly presenting Brexit in terms of individual taxes, regulation, immigration and economic policy.
Reform’s proposed change to air passenger duty
Air passenger duty is a tax charged on passengers departing from most UK airports.
Under Reform’s proposal, families travelling with children on short-haul flights would no longer pay the duty.
The party argues that the measure would make family holidays more affordable and provide a direct financial benefit to households.
Jenrick presented the policy near Heathrow Airport, arguing that the existing tax places an additional burden on families at a time when household budgets remain under pressure. Reform has estimated the saving at £45 for international short-haul flights and £48 for domestic journeys.
The proposal is therefore relatively straightforward compared with some of Reform’s wider economic plans.
The political question is how the party would replace the revenue currently generated by the tax or accommodate the reduction within its broader fiscal programme.
That question is particularly relevant because Reform has simultaneously promised substantial tax reductions and major reductions in government spending.
Why Farage calls it a Brexit benefit
The connection with Brexit comes from the argument that leaving the European Union gives the UK greater freedom to determine its own tax and regulatory policies.
Farage has consistently presented Brexit as a transfer of decision-making power from Brussels to Westminster.
In June, he wrote that Reform was determined to prevent closer UK-EU alignment and argued that the party was the political force most committed to implementing what it regards as the original Brexit mandate.
The party’s current policy platform describes Britain as a “sovereign” country and argues that Brexit should allow the UK to pursue policies independently of EU institutions.
The air-passenger-duty proposal fits that broader philosophy.
It does not mean that Brexit itself automatically requires the tax to be removed. Rather, Reform is presenting the UK’s ability to set its own tax policy as one of the opportunities created by leaving the EU.
That distinction is important.
Brexit changed the institutional framework governing the UK’s relationship with the EU, but individual tax decisions remain choices made by British governments.
A wider Reform economic programme
The aviation announcement is only one part of a much larger economic programme.
Reform says that, within its first 100 days in government, it would raise the personal income-tax allowance to £15,000 and cut £250 from annual household energy bills. It also proposes substantial reductions in government spending.
The party has placed welfare reform particularly high on its agenda.
In August, Reform announced plans to prevent foreign nationals from receiving most welfare payments. ITV reported that the party estimated the measures could save approximately £21 billion annually by the fifth year of implementation.
That proposal would be considerably more complicated in relation to EU citizens with rights under the Withdrawal Agreement.
ITV noted that Reform’s proposal could require the UK to renegotiate aspects of the post-Brexit settlement and potentially affect reciprocal rights for British citizens living in the EU.
The example demonstrates that the party’s interpretation of Brexit is not simply about reducing taxes.
It also involves revisiting elements of the arrangements established after the 2016 referendum.
Brexit and the question of regulatory freedom
Farage has repeatedly argued that Brexit should allow Britain to move away from EU rules.
The House of Lords Library notes that Reform opposes closer alignment with the EU and has said it would seek to reverse parts of agreements already in force. Farage has particularly criticised regulatory alignment, arguing that it could restrict Britain’s ability to make independent decisions.
This position places Reform on one side of an increasingly important political debate.
The current government has been exploring closer cooperation with the EU in selected areas while maintaining its formal commitment to the UK’s withdrawal from the bloc.
Reform argues that such arrangements risk gradually reducing the practical independence created by Brexit.
Supporters of closer UK-EU relations make a different argument: that cooperation can reduce barriers to trade and movement without requiring the UK to rejoin the EU.
The disagreement is therefore partly about how Brexit should be used rather than simply whether Brexit should have happened.
The financial question
Any proposal to abolish a tax raises the question of how much revenue would be lost and how the government would compensate for it.
Reform’s answer is based on a combination of spending reductions, economic growth and changes to other areas of taxation.
The party has repeatedly argued that the British state contains substantial inefficiencies and that spending can be reduced without necessarily reducing essential services.
Critics dispute some of Reform’s calculations and have questioned whether the savings claimed across its programme could realistically be achieved.
The broader fiscal environment makes the debate particularly important.
A September 2026 House of Lords Library assessment noted that the UK’s fiscal position remains challenging, with borrowing costs creating pressure on the government’s room for manoeuvre. It also noted that national debt is close to £3 trillion and that the tax take is projected to reach a historic high within five years.
Against that background, tax-cutting proposals need to be considered alongside their funding arrangements.
A changing debate over Brexit
Ten years after the referendum, the political debate over Brexit has changed significantly.
The immediate question of whether Britain should leave the EU has been settled.
The arguments now concern what Britain should do with the powers it has acquired and how its relationship with Europe should operate.
Reform has attempted to make itself the political guardian of what it considers the original Brexit programme.
Farage argued in June that Labour and the Conservatives had failed to deliver what Leave voters expected and said Reform would resist attempts to move Britain closer to the EU.
However, public opinion about Brexit remains divided.
Recent polling has found substantial support for closer cooperation with the EU in particular areas, while other voters remain concerned about any arrangement that could involve regulatory or political alignment.
The debate is therefore no longer simply Leave versus Remain.
It increasingly concerns which forms of cooperation voters consider beneficial and where they believe Britain should maintain independent control.
Farage’s broader political message
For Farage, the air passenger duty proposal provides an opportunity to make the Brexit argument more tangible.
Constitutional questions about sovereignty can seem distant to voters.
A lower cost for a family holiday is much easier to understand.
That helps explain why Reform has presented the proposal as a practical benefit rather than simply another argument about Britain’s relationship with Brussels.
The same strategy can be seen elsewhere in the party’s programme.
Reform links Brexit to immigration controls, tax policy, energy costs, regulation and government spending.
The objective is to present Brexit not as a historical event but as the basis for a continuing programme of domestic policy.
The limits of the argument
There is, however, an important distinction between a policy made possible by Brexit and a benefit caused by Brexit.
The UK had the ability to set its own air passenger duty before Brexit, and governments could have changed the tax regardless of the UK’s EU membership.
Reform’s proposal is therefore a political choice made within the post-Brexit framework.
Similarly, the fact that Britain can diverge from EU policy does not automatically mean that divergence produces an economic gain.
Each policy has to be assessed separately.
That is especially important because regulatory divergence can sometimes create additional costs for British businesses trading with European markets, even while giving the government greater freedom to establish different domestic rules.
The balance between autonomy and economic integration remains one of the central questions surrounding Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with Europe.
A symbolic announcement with a practical dimension
The air passenger duty proposal consequently has two dimensions.
On one level, it is a specific Reform tax policy aimed at reducing the cost of short-haul family travel.
On another, it forms part of Farage’s broader political argument that Brexit should be used more aggressively to create policies that would not necessarily have been pursued under closer EU alignment.
The announcement also reflects Reform’s attempt to demonstrate that its Brexit position has consequences beyond immigration and sovereignty.
Whether the proposed saving would ultimately outweigh the lost tax revenue would depend on the details of implementation and the wider fiscal programme.
For voters, the significance of the announcement will therefore depend partly on whether they see the proposed reduction in air passenger duty as a worthwhile use of government resources and partly on how it fits alongside Reform’s other tax and spending commitments.
Brexit’s next chapter
Farage’s announcement shows that the Brexit debate remains active a decade after the referendum.
The central argument has shifted from whether Britain should leave the European Union to how it should use the freedom created by leaving.
Reform’s answer is to pursue greater divergence, lower selected taxes and reduce what it regards as unnecessary regulation.
Other parties favour different balances between national autonomy and cooperation with European neighbours.
The proposed abolition of air passenger duty for families on short-haul flights is therefore a relatively small measure within a much larger political argument.
For Reform, however, it provides a simple example of the kind of policy Farage believes should be possible in post-Brexit Britain.
Whether voters regard such measures as meaningful benefits of Brexit, ordinary domestic policy choices, or a combination of both will remain part of the wider political debate as Reform develops its programme for the next general election.