WAR on the workers was declared by Reform UK today.

The far-right party’s deputy leader Richard Tice pledged the repeal of employment rights and new protections for renters in a fresh commitment to hard-line Thatcherite deregulation.

Mr Tice, who leads for the party on business issues, called for “a great repeal Bill that ditches daft regulations: scrap net zero, scrap ZEV (zero emission vehicle) mandates, scrap new employment rights rules, scrap new property rental rules.”

These laws, he said “kill jobs, hinder growth, investment and prosperity. This will all help lower inflation and bring down bills for consumers.”

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak warned that Reform “wants to strip power from ordinary people and hand it to bad bosses, rogue landlords and climate-denying corporations.

“Axing workers’ rights, renter protections and net zero won’t cut bills. It will slash standards, kill jobs and scare off investment.

“This is Reform rigging the system for their corporate backers.”

Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said: “The mask’s off. Reform UK has shown what it really thinks of working people.

“The millionaires calling the shots in Reform don’t think those putting in a hard day’s graft deserve basic rights or fair pay. The party’s out-of-touch MPs have consistently voted against every measure to improve fairness and rights at work.

“But these new changes are popular with the public and could improve the lives of millions. Scrapping them would be a huge mistake.”

Steve Wright, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said it was “outrageous that Reform, a party led by multi-millionaires, wants to ditch new laws that ban fire and rehire, prohibit exploitative zero-hour contracts, and extend protection against unfair dismissal.

“Once again, Tice and Farage have shown that the interests of working people are not safe in the hands of Reform,” he said.

Ben Twomey, of Generation Rent, said that “forcing people back into insecure and unsafe homes is not a promise, it’s a threat levelled at England’s 11 million private renters. 

“Our homes are the foundations of our lives, so it is disgraceful to see Reform UK pledging to roll back new and essential protections that would improve the quality of our homes and help us to stay in them for longer.”

And a Labour Party spokesperson said: “Reform has formally declared war on British workers. Nigel Farage and his cronies want to rip up hard-won workers’ rights on parental leave, sick pay, and would cut up to a million clean energy jobs in the process. 

“Reform have revealed whose side they’re on — and it’s not working people. And it’s families up and down the country who’d be left paying a very heavy price.”

Mr Tice also pledged that a Reform government would block new entrants to local government pension schemes, which would be consolidated into a sovereign wealth fund, which Ms Egan condemned.

“Attacking the pensions of council staff is a disastrous move. Employees would be denied a secure retirement income and it would worsen the recruitment crisis in local government,” she said.

Reform would further clamp down on imports from China and ramp up oil and gas production, Mr Tice announced.

His plans are the latest instalment in a policy blitz which has seen Reform junk populist economic promises in favour of a new austerity under its chancellor-designate Robert Jenrick, pledge an Ice-style deportation force to round up migrants and commit to scrapping equalities legislation.

Reform MP Danny Kruger, a defector from the Tories, added his penny’s-worth today with a call to back marriage.

“Marriage traditionally was the means by which sexual relations between men and women were regulated, and I think we are suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy,” he claimed.