Side by side
The Liberal Democrats and Reform UK across all ten areas, in their own stated terms. Open in full for the detail beneath any line.
Immigration & asylum
Lib Dems
Safe and legal routes, and faster decisions
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Emphasises safe and legal routes and faster decision-making, arguing deterrence-first policy has repeatedly failed to reduce crossings.
Reform
Freeze non-essential immigration; abolish ILR; Deportation Command
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An immediate freeze on non-essential immigration and a new Deportation Command. Indefinite Leave to Remain would be abolished and existing grants rescinded, replaced by a five-year renewable visa carrying higher salary thresholds, mandatory English fluency and stricter good-character requirements.
Rupert Lowe left the party in part over his claim that Reform was "watering down" deportation policy — placing Reform to the left of Restore Britain on its own signature issue.
Check itPolicies — Reform UKTax & the economy
Lib Dems
£9.4bn for care and the NHS from bank and capital gains taxes
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A £9.4bn package for social care and the NHS, funded by higher taxes on banks and tighter capital gains rules for the very wealthy.
Check itLib Dem social care proposals examined — The ConversationReform
Around £70bn a year of tax cuts
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Around £70bn a year of tax cuts, with family-focused measures including a 25% marriage allowance and child benefit front-loaded into the early years.
Independent economists have repeatedly questioned whether cuts on this scale can be funded without deep spending reductions the party has not specified.
Check itReform UK manifesto: policy breakdown — London DailyNHS & social care
Lib Dems
Free personal care for everyone who needs it
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Free personal care for everyone who needs it, costed at £2.7bn a year by 2028–29 and funded by reversing tax cuts given to the large banks since 2016 — so that nobody has to sell their home to pay for personal care. Alongside it a Carer's Minimum Wage set £2 above the minimum wage, a Royal College of Care Workers, and Carer's Allowance raised by £20 a week with eligibility extended to anyone earning under £183 a week.
Analysts have welcomed the seriousness of the reform while questioning whether the funding stream covers the long-run cost.
Check itEd Davey launches plan for free personal care — Liberal DemocratsReform
Re-examine the funding model; tax breaks for NHS staff
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Re-examining the NHS funding model rather than the free-at-the-point-of-use principle. Specific pledges include temporarily zero-rating basic-rate income tax for NHS staff, tax relief on private health insurance, and independent reviews to train more staff and expand community services.
Check itPolicies — Reform UKHousing
Lib Dems
Council-led building; empty homes back into use
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Expanding council-led housebuilding, bringing empty homes back into use, and requiring developers to deliver the affordable homes they have been permitted to build.
Reform
Restrict social housing and welfare access for migrants
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Housing policy appears mainly through immigration: restricting welfare and social housing access for migrants.
Little detail published on overall housing supply or building targets.
Check itPolicies — Reform UKCrime & justice
Lib Dems
Restore community policing; scrap Police and Crime Commissioners
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Restoring community policing, and scrapping Police and Crime Commissioners in favour of local Police Boards made up of councillors and local representatives, with the savings put into frontline policing. Recent party papers also defend trial by jury against proposals to restrict it.
Check itStronger Communities, Safer Citizens — Liberal DemocratsReform
40,000 more police; mandatory minimums; more prison places
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40,000 more police officers, expanded stop and search, mandatory minimum sentences for serious and repeat offenders, and more prison capacity so overcrowding no longer forces early release.
Check itReform UK manifesto: policy breakdown — London DailyEnergy & net zero
Lib Dems
End sewage discharges by water companies
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Ending sewage discharges by water companies has been the party's most prominent environmental campaign.
Reform
Scrap net zero targets; return to North Sea gas
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Scrapping net zero targets outright and "rehabilitating" North Sea gas as a primary energy source, framed as the fastest way to cut household bills.
Check itPolicies — Reform UKEducation
Lib Dems
No current published position located. This may mean the party has said little on the subject, or that we have not found what it has said — we would rather show the gap than fill it with inference.
Reform
No current published position located. This may mean the party has said little on the subject, or that we have not found what it has said — we would rather show the gap than fill it with inference.
Defence & foreign policy
Lib Dems
No current published position located. This may mean the party has said little on the subject, or that we have not found what it has said — we would rather show the gap than fill it with inference.
Reform
Little published beyond withdrawing from institutions
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Reform has published comparatively little defence policy. What exists is framed around withdrawal from international institutions and conventions rather than force structure or spending commitments.
Analysts characterise this as a foreign policy of withdrawal; the party has not published a defence spending target.
Check itReform UK: a foreign policy of withdrawal — Next Century FoundationEurope & the constitution
Lib Dems
Repair the relationship with Europe; a new Magna Carta
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The most consistently pro-European of the six: repairing what Davey calls Britain's "broken relationship" with Europe, tearing down trade barriers and fixing the "botched" Brexit deal. Domestically he has called for "a new Magna Carta" to constrain executive power.
Reform
Leave the ECHR immediately
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A Reform government would leave the European Convention on Human Rights immediately, which the party presents as the mechanism that would let it deport people without legal challenge. Farage has framed withdrawal as the natural sequel to Brexit.
Legal scholars dispute the premise: the Convention does not dictate a state's immigration policy, and states set their own. The UK would also become the only European country outside it besides Russia and Belarus.
Check itPolicies — Reform UKMedia & culture
Lib Dems
No current published position located. This may mean the party has said little on the subject, or that we have not found what it has said — we would rather show the gap than fill it with inference.
Reform
Abolish the BBC licence fee; scrap DEI rules
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Abolition of the BBC licence fee outright, and scrapping Diversity, Equality and Inclusion requirements across the public sector.
Check itThe future of the BBC licence fee — House of Commons Library
Positions are summarised from each party’s published material. How we place parties.
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