“I think there's no higher calling in terms of a career than public service, which is a chance to make a difference in people's lives and improve the world.” - Jacob Lew
Elon Musk is determined to sack hundreds of thousands of US federal employees. Trump has put him in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Yesterday he issued an ultimatum to US federal employees. They must justify their work by responding to an email with approximately five bullet points of what they accomplished last week. If they fail to do this they will be considered to have resigned their job. If Musk finds their answers unacceptable they will be sacked.
The directive has affected hundreds of thousands of workers in departments such as Veterans Affairs, Defence, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service, and the National Parks Service. Employees from the FBI, State Department, and federal court system have also received Musk’s email asking them to justify their place on the government payroll.
While we here in the UK look on with concerned amusement at Musk’s latest dictatorial missives, we would do well to take his actions more seriously. Only a few days ago Nigel Farage gave his unreserved support to Musk’s efforts to sack people without cause.
“I believe that the talents of the world’s most successful businessman, going into this amazing Doge project, I wish him all the luck in the world and god speed, I really, really do.” (2025 Conservative Political Action Conference)
Farage’s Reform UK party is growing in size and influence and in a recent YouGov poll, 26% of the electorate said they would vote for Farage at the next election. Farage has been highly vocal in his desire, like Musk, to "reduce the size of the state", especially with regard the public sector. He has argued that a smaller state would lead to lower taxes and greater efficiency.
Let us look at both those claims.
Certainly, a smaller government workforce means a lower government wage bill. Whether of not any government would pass these savings on to the ordinary taxpayer in the form of tax cuts is open to debate. It is easy, as Nigel Farage, knows all to well, to speak in generalities such as “increasing efficiency", “reducing the tax burden” and “cutting a bloated government workforce” but what are the negative effects of such a policy?
As of September 2024 there were 6.12 million public sector employees in the UK, including local government and public institutions like the NHS. Of these, 3.97million were employed directly by central government. (ONS: Public Sector Personnel)
This brings us to the second argument Farage uses to justify job cuts – efficiency.
If Farage were to treat all UK public sector workers to the same Musk-style inquisition Britain's public services would collapse. Teachers, the police, doctors, fire-fighters, nurses, dentists, the armed forces, security officers, prison officers, ambulance staff, engineers, environmental officers, inspectors, railway workers etc etc would all have to justify their jobs.
We all know what 14 years of Tory Austerity has done for public sector efficiency and service: Farage's policies would be far worse.
In addition to the collapse of essential public services there would be a massive rise in unemployment. This in turn lead to more people claiming welfare support at a time of a rising cost of living crisis. Is Farage really suggesting hundreds of thousands of British workers should be made redundant and thrown onto welfare? Is this what voting for Reform UK really means?
Those who support Farage and the far right should think very carefully what they wish for.