CAMPAIGNERS slammed Reform UK for its “complete lack of understanding” of the benefits system as the hard-right party vowed to slash welfare for foreign nationals and almost three million disabled people.

A Nigel Farage-led government would cut £50 billion per year in social security spending, his Treasury spokesman pledged today, prompting fears that millions could see their disability and sickness payments withdrawn or modified.

But left Labour MP Diane Abbott hit back at Robert Jenrick, saying: “Reform UK promotes reactionary policies across the board.

“Ultimately, all their policies benefit big business and attack workers and the poor. This is the reason they promote division,” Ms Abbott told the Morning Star.

Calling it the biggest shake-up of the welfare state in a generation, Mr Jenrick promised to abolish personal independence payments (Pip) and the health element of Universal Credit for working-age adults.

Writing in the Telegraph, the former Tory cited the share of working-age people claiming help for mental health and behavioural conditions, which has tripled since 2002, claiming “this is not an epidemic of broken backs and lost limbs.”

The hard-right party also said it would ban foreign nationals from claiming almost all kinds of benefits if it comes to power at the next general election.

European Union nationals with settled status in Britain would also be included in the ban, meaning the government would need to negotiate the Brexit deal with Brussels, and potentially leading to British nationals in the EU losing equivalent rights.

Previous pledges from Reform officials already took aim at foreign nationals claiming universal credit, but new plans cover almost all welfare payments.

A Labour spokesman said the proposal would mean “plunging the UK back into years of Brexit renegotiations and stripping support from potentially millions of people who have lawfully lived, worked and paid taxes in Britain for years, and in many cases decades.”

And the “vast majority” of migrants had no access to benefits, they added.

Under Reform plans for disability payments, which Mr Jenrick said would be revealed in full detail today, cash payments for so-called low-level conditions would stop and be replaced with disability support accounts.

Reform said it would also create a new health security allowance, providing support for the “gravely ill and severely challenged.”

The hard-right party suggested it would force employers to pay a “return to work cover” insurance, which would fund the first two years after a worker is signed off from their job, giving them a “strong economic incentive” to bring them back to work.

However, disability rights campaigners have long argued that slashing vital welfare payments would backfire by making it harder for people to live or work.

Low-level support given early “reduces the overall cost to the government,” Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) co-founder Linda Burnip said.

This can result in “avoiding hospital admissions and lengthy treatments” alongside other protections, Ms Burnip told the Morning Star.

“Reform [politicians] show a complete lack of understanding about how both social security and Labour markets work,” she said.

“Many disabled people would like to work but can’t due to the barriers disabled people face when getting and keeping employment.

“Until these issues have been rectified, removing essential funding to meet the extra costs of disability from people is likely to result in people’s physical and mental health worsening.”

“Reducing one budget doesn’t necessarily lead to an overall saving and could well cost more.”

Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately said Reform’s plans were an attempt to distract attention from the investigation into a £5 million donation to party leader Nigel Farage and his “pointless by-election” in Clacton.

And a Labour spokeswoman said: “Reform’s £50bn claim is fantasy economics, built on stripping support from disabled people and shifting costs onto employers.”

She added that the Labour government’s reforms to welfare “deliver credible, independently-costed savings, not arbitrary numbers with no credible plan behind them.”

Labour also slammed Mr Farage following reports about his donors’ links to an unlicensed gambling service, saying: “Farage cannot run from the truth forever. 

“The mountain of unanswered questions around his finances and judgement is only getting bigger. He needs to stop the excuses, come clean with the public.”

Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali said: “Once again, the establishment parties are all trying to outdo each other when it comes to who can be the most xenophobic, who can punch down the hardest to the most vulnerable in our country, and who can cut the most support from disabled people.

“It is cowardly to take from the most defenceless when we should be taxing the super wealthy including those who are in the privileged position of accepting £5m donations.”