- Conference
- 2025 National Retired Members Conference
- Date
- 6 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes with deep concern the success of Reform UK at the 2025 general Election and in by-elections and several large local authorities which held elections in May 2025
Conference notes that, although polling figures for the General Election showed that Reform trailed the Conservatives amongst older voters, they caught up or nearly so in May 2025. In other words, Reform is gaining ground among older voters.
Yet, Reform has advocated a number of policies which would negatively affect older people including:
• Privatization of Healthcare: Proposals to increase NHS reliance on private providers and tax relief for private healthcare could divert funding from public services, disproportionately affecting older adults who depend on state-funded care and can ill afford private health costs.
• Higher Energy Costs: Scrapping net zero targets could destabilize energy markets, leaving pensioners vulnerable to volatile fossil fuel prices. Older adults, who spend a higher proportion of income on heating, may face increased financial strain. In addition, reduced investment in clean energy could worsen air pollution, exacerbating respiratory and cardiovascular conditions common among older populations.
• Staffing Shortages: Reform UK’s proposed freeze on “non-essential” immigration and 20% National Insurance surcharge on foreign workers could worsen staffing shortages in social care, where 20% of workers are non-UK nationals. This could risk delaying care for elderly people.
• Underfunded Social Care Plans: While Reform proposes a royal commission to address social care, this delays urgent action. Current care systems rely heavily on overseas workers, and restrictive policies could collapse already fragile services that older people rely on.
• Scrapping the Equality Act: Plans to replace the Equality Act and ban “transgender ideology” in schools signal a broader rollback of anti-discrimination frameworks. This could marginalize older LGBTQ+ individuals and weaken protections against age-based discrimination in healthcare and services.
• Leaving the ECHR: Exiting the European Convention on Human Rights could undermine legal protections for elders’ rights, such as access to healthcare or dignified living conditions
• Lack of Social Housing: No proposals to expand social housing could leave low-income pensioners reliant on housing benefits, which 16% already fail to claim.
In addition, Reform’s economic policies will cost us all.
Conference believes that simply condemning all Reform voters as ill-informed and racist is a serious misstep and that while Reform voters have adopted a regressive political position, at core many voters have legitimate concerns about cuts, housing, pensions and other such issues.
Conference believes that the Retired members of UNISON can and should be helping to defeat Reform. Conference instructs the National Retired Members’ Committee to:
1. Work with the rest of the union to renew the trade union struggle against the far right wherever they organise;
2. Seek to work with pensioner organisations in all the nations of the UK in countering Reform propaganda and recruitment efforts amongst older people;
3. publish material aimed at retired members challenging Reform’s policies particularly as they could affect older and retired people, raising awareness of their risks and holding Reform’s elected representatives to account;
4. encourage regional and branch retired members’ sections to do the same and to support local community organising against racism and xenophobia.