What Would a Farage Government Mean for Compliance?

British politics has always had a taste for the improbable. Still, even so, the idea of Nigel Farage as prime minister once belonged to the realm of pub banter and political satire. This is no longer the case. Reform UK’s leader barnstormed his recent party conference with a prediction of an election victory by 2027, several years before the end of this parliament. With Labour holding a 148-seat majority and Reform having just four MPs, it should sound absurd. Yet Reform’s gravitational pull on opinion polls already outstrips its parliamentary weight.

Polls narrow during campaigns; Theresa May learned that the hard way in 2017. But four years out from the next scheduled election, we can’t dismiss the prospect of a Reform-tinged government, whether through coalition, supply-and-confidence, or outright majority. For compliance professionals, the question is no longer “if”, but “what then?”

FCA in the firing line

At the heart of Reform’s pitch is a bonfire of regulators. The Financial Conduct Authority, the watchdog that oversees everything from retail banking to crypto, would be stripped of some of its powers, perhaps even scrapped entirely. Proposals floated by Reform imagine a return to “self-regulation” of finance and insurance, an echo of the pre-2008 world.

Farage’s hostility to financial regulation is also personal. His well-publicized debanking saga, where Coutts closed his accounts after assessing him as a reputational risk, turned into a national scandal and a rallying cry against what he calls “woke capitalism.”

Expect any Reform-led government to wield a wrecking ball against the compliance culture that enables banks to weigh reputational risk alongside financial risk. The greater risk is uncertainty; politically driven deregulation born from a personal vendetta could destabilize the careful balance of risk management, consumer protection and market integrity.

For compliance teams, a weakened or even repealed FCA is not necessarily a lighter burden. It could shift the risk back onto the firm itself. If compliance becomes more about self-regulation than following the FCA’s rules, then any savings from reduced regulatory compliance would likely be offset by increased internal procedures.

Equality Act on the chopping block

Farage has promised to repeal the Equality Act 2010, denouncing it as a drag on productivity. In practice, this could mean dismantling protections piece by piece, or ripping up the statute wholesale. Either way, the compliance landscape changes.

If the act is repealed outright, the UK would effectively return to the pre-2010 patchwork of discrimination laws, resulting in separate statutes for sex, race, disability, religion, age and sexual orientation, each with different thresholds, enforcement routes and levels of protection. That would not only create inconsistency for workers but also generate a confusing compliance situation for employers, who would have to navigate overlapping and sometimes contradictory duties across multiple acts. The Equality Act created a single, unified framework, and its removal could drag businesses back to a fractured system with uneven safeguards depending on which characteristic is in question.

Tribunals might shrink in scope and claims might reduce, which some employers might welcome, but the picture wouldn’t necessarily get simpler. A return to fragmented laws could make discrimination claims more complex, with lawyers testing gaps between statutes or shifting cases toward the Human Rights Act if protections for equality weaken. Workplaces may, conversely, have to invest more in training and policy development, as the simple single system is replaced by a fragmented patchwork, as it was before 2010.

Net zero, ESG and the investor dilemma

Net-zero targets would almost certainly be scrapped under a Reform government, with fossil fuels fast-tracked and climate disclosure requirements pared back. Corporate governance codes could also be softened in line with a deregulatory push. This would place the UK closer to the anti-ESG stance emerging in the US, where regulators and politicians have sought to roll back mandatory reporting and limit the influence of sustainability considerations in investment decisions.

For compliance teams, this wouldn’t necessarily remove ESG obligations entirely, but it would shift the pressure to a different source. Statutory reporting might decline, while investor and market expectations continue to demand Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures- or International Sustainability Standards Board-aligned disclosures. The result could be a split system: lighter obligations in domestic law but ongoing or even stricter requirements driven by international markets, asset managers and cross-listing on foreign exchanges.

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Employment and workplace rules

Reform has made a promise to roll back “EU red tape” in employment law, targeting measures like working time regulations, agency worker protections and limits on zero-hour contracts. They have also committed to removing the IR35 rules to support sole traders and contractors, a move that would simplify tax compliance for individuals but shift responsibility back onto businesses to manage their contractor relationships carefully. For HR and tax compliance teams, that means re-evaluating engagement models, payroll systems and oversight of off-payroll arrangements.

IR35 was introduced initially to stop disguised employment arrangements being used for tax avoidance. If it is scrapped, firms could inadvertently enable or overlook contractor models that amount to evasion. Under the failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion offense, businesses can be prosecuted if their employees or agents facilitate tax evasion, even if management was unaware of the actions. HRMC, the UK’s tax, payments and customs authority, has already used this offense, with the first corporate prosecution in 2025 against a firm accused of enabling fraudulent R&D tax credit claims. Removing IR35 won’t remove that liability. If anything, it raises the stakes for firms to have robust due diligence, monitoring and reporting controls in place for contractor relationships.

Human rights, trade & the labor market

Reform has made leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) a centrepiece of their pitch and has also pledged to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a new domestic framework. Employment tribunals could narrow in scope, but businesses might still face claims reframed as human rights issues under a new “British Bill of Rights” that has been pledged as a replacement. Right-to-work checks and immigration controls would likely tighten if ECHR exit is coupled with a freeze on “non-essential” immigration, creating heavier administrative demands for HR teams and potentially raising labor costs in sectors reliant on overseas workers or specialist visas. The most critical risk for compliance is determining which rights will remain enforceable and navigating the changes that an entire generation of workers has become accustomed to.

On trade, a more confrontational stance with the EU would increase regulatory divergence, requiring exporters to maintain dual compliance systems: one set for UK rules and another to ensure market access in Europe. The sanctions policy could also shift, with the alignment to strict European sanctions on Russia potentially being relaxed in pursuit of new trade opportunities. Public procurement and supply chain standards may also be revised under a British-first approach, potentially diluting transparency and modern slavery requirements.

Preparing for what comes next

Whether or not Reform UK achieves an electoral breakthrough at the next vote, its agenda is already reshaping the policy debate. For compliance professionals, it’s best to prepare for potential volatility. A future government led by or involving Nigel Farage could mean deregulation, resulting in a more complex landscape around issues like workplace discrimination. Even if Labour remains in power after the next election, the growing pressure from Reform suggests that themes like regulator rollbacks, immigration controls and a tougher stance on “red tape” will continue to influence policymaking. Reform’s long-term political influence, even without an immediate victory, means it’s worthwhile to undertake parallel planning for possible scenarios that could directly affect your business, whatever the ballot box delivers.

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