Reform UK’s claim to be a serious political force took another heavy blow this week after two of its most high-profile MPs, Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, blundered through one of the most basic tests of parliamentary competence: voting in the correct lobby.
During a crucial House of Commons vote on whether to scrap the deeply controversial two-child benefit cap, the pair voted to abolish it—despite Reform UK now officially backing the policy. The explanation offered by party sources was as limp as it was familiar: it was all a “genuine mistake”. Unfortunately for Reform, the official Commons record tells a rather less forgiving story.
Braverman and Jenrick voted alongside Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the DUP, and Plaid Cymru to scrap the cap. Five other Reform MPs managed to vote against scrapping it, entirely in line with party policy. In other words, most of Reform’s parliamentary group knew exactly what they were doing. Two of its most prominent figures did not.
A Labour MP summed it up brutally, saying the episode showed Reform “couldn’t run a bath, let alone a country”. It is hard to disagree. Voting is not an obscure procedural trick; it is the central act of parliamentary democracy. MPs are physically shepherded into clearly marked lobbies. Getting it wrong is not a matter of ideological nuance, it is sheer incompetence.
More proof that Reform UK couldn’t run a bath, let alone a country:
— Paul Waugh MP (@paulwaugh) February 3, 2026
– Braverman and Jenrick voted FOR Labour’s bill to scrap the 2 child cap tonight.
– 4 other Reform MPs voted AGAINST it.
– And Farage didn’t vote either way. pic.twitter.com/1mEYYqLI88
What followed was a predictable attempt at damage control. Reform sources initially claimed neither Braverman nor Jenrick had registered a vote at all. That claim collapsed almost immediately when the Commons division list confirmed both had voted and voted the “wrong” way. One Labour MP stated that Reform’s spin was “just nonsense”, a view widely shared across Westminster.
The wider context only deepens the embarrassment. The two-child benefit cap was introduced by the last Conservative government as a blunt instrument to cut welfare spending, disproportionately affecting low-income families and children. Last year, when the government announced plans to scrap it, Nigel Farage himself called the move “the right thing to do”, arguing it would make having children “just a little bit easier” for lower-paid workers.
Now, Farage has performed yet another sharp U-turn. Reform’s current position is that the cap should remain, except for households where both parents are British and in full-time work—a policy that is legally dubious, morally questionable and administratively nightmarish. On Tuesday, Farage went further still, suggesting the money saved by keeping the cap should instead be used to subsidise pubs.
That sequence of events—support scrapping the cap, oppose scrapping it, then conditionally scrap it, then spend the savings elsewhere—would be dizzying enough if it were carefully thought through. Instead, it is being played out through on-the-hoof soundbites and MPs wandering into the wrong voting lobbies.
For a party that markets itself as the straight-talking alternative to a “broken” political system, Reform UK is starting to look like a parody of the very chaos it claims to oppose. Policy reversals are dressed up as pragmatism. Basic errors are waved away as misunderstandings. And when caught out, the instinct is not accountability but denial.
Politics is ultimately about trust and competence. This week, Reform UK demonstrated a lack of both. If its MPs cannot follow their own party line. or even physically vote the way they intend, voters are entitled to ask a simple question: why on earth should anyone believe they are ready for government?
