The UK’s retreat from economic, social and cultural rights protection and promotion is not only deepening poverty and inequality but also creating fertile ground for far-right populism to thrive. As the UK Government sidelines international obligations, we are quickening down a dangerous path.
A warning ignored: the UN’s call for action
In March 2025, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued a stark warning: the UK is falling short of its human rights obligations.
It particularly highlighted social security protections, which have been eroded resulting in severe economic hardship – particularly for Disabled people, low-income families, and workers in precarious employment. Yet since that warning, UK Government policies have only worsened concerns.
Eroding protections: the impacts of welfare reform
At Just Fair, our vision is for a UK where everyone enjoys their economic, social and cultural rights, creating a fairer, more equal and more just society for all. We believe that the worsening situation in the UK is rooted in a fundamental failure to use a rights-based framework to shape policy and underpin decision making.
We briefed the UN Special Rapporteur on poverty on how recent welfare decisions risk compounding inequality, undermining social cohesion, and weakening protections for those most at risk, for the newly published report – “Far-right populism and the future of social protection.”
While it is true that the UK Government has taken some steps to address inequalities, such as with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which offers limited relief through breakfast club provision, these marginal gains are not enough.
These steps are overshadowed by regressive new legislation such as the Universal Credit Act which even in its final, watered-down, version (following strong civil society advocacy and resistance) represents a continued retreat from the UK’s commitment to economic, social and cultural rights protection. There is also the ongoing impact of negative policies like the two-child limit and benefit cap, which remain in force despite repeated calls from the UN and UK civil society to reverse them.
These aren’t isolated failures, they reflect a deeper, systemic problem: the absence of a rights-based framework at the heart of policymaking.
Populism and division: the consequences of rights retreat
These decisions also occur in the context of an increasingly hostile environment for migrants and people seeking asylum, where scapegoating has replaced accountability and rights protections.
As the far-right gains traction in UK politics, there’s a clear danger that government policy is fuelling the very divisions it claims to oppose. The narrative that pits migrants, ‘benefit claimants’, and other groups against “hardworking families” and each other risks normalising exclusion and discrimination, while failing to address underlying structural causes of poverty and inequality.
The UK Government’s framing of itself as the champion of “working people” implies that only economically productive individuals deserve support. This undermines the human right to social security, enshrined in international law and intended to protect everyone, regardless of employment status.
Economic insecurity leaves the popular discourse vulnerable to being co-opted by those seeking to capitalise on a sense of disenfranchisement and betrayal. It creates an environment in which simplistic, populist promises provide apparently easy solutions to complex problems.
Rather than strengthening social security as a means to fulfil human rights obligations and counter far-right populism, the UK is pursuing reforms that may deepen exclusion, mistrust, and hardship for those already living in poverty.
A rights-based alternative: building a fairer future
We know there is another way.
Instead of developing policy which is moving in the opposite direction to its human rights obligations, the UK Government could use maximum available resources – including taxation policies that enable investment – to fulfil its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It could ensure inclusive policymaking based on an underpinning human rights framework, co-design with affected communities, and effective safeguards against regression.
At a time of economic insecurity and political uncertainty, rights-based social protection is not a luxury, it is a necessity. We call on policymakers to stop the slide, and build a system rooted in justice, equality and dignity for all.
Background image by Palak Garg
