![\"LONDON,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SEI_306141643-20a1.jpg\")
\n\t\tThe hosepipe ban has been placed on more than 26 million people amid the major drought (Picture: Leon Neal\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\t\t
\n\t\tThe hosepipe ban has been placed on more than 26 million people amid the major drought (Picture: Leon Neal\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Reform UK has claimed mass immigration is the reason why millions of people in England<\/a> and Wales<\/a> are banned from using their hoses.<\/p>\n Both countries recorded their driest July since Met Office<\/a> records began 190 years ago, with some areas going more than 50 days without a drop of rain<\/a>.<\/p>\n The extreme conditions have led drought to be declared in two-thirds of England and across the whole of Wales.<\/p>\n In the past few weeks, hosepipe bans have been introduced by Affinity Water, Anglian Water, Cambridge<\/a> Water, Essex<\/a> and Suffolk<\/a> Water, Southern Water, South East Water, South West Water, Thames Water, Welsh Water and Essex & Suffolk Water.<\/p>\n Reform UK has suggested in a new policy paper that this would not be happening if it wasn\u2019t for mass immigration to the UK.<\/p>\n Announcing a new plan to end annual hosepipe bans, Nigel Farage<\/a>\u2019s party said the situation is \u2018the consequence of the Tories importing 12 million people over fourteen years, placing huge strain on our infrastructure\u2019.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tMake sense of the mad world of British politics\t\t\t<\/p>\n Get analysis of the latest stories \u2013 including this week’s Clacton by-election \u2013 direct to your inbox from Metro\u2019s Senior Politics Reporter Craig Munro.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n It added: \u2018A prosperous country should not have to turn the taps off in the summer.\u2019<\/p>\n The party proposes scrapping the government\u2019s target of reducing public water supply usage in England by a fifth by 2038, arguing the UK \u2018must embrace abundance\u2019.<\/p>\n Future water supply would be ensured by building \u2018as many reservoirs as it takes\u2019, after reducing the size threshold for a new reservoir to be treated as a nationally significant infrastructure project (NSIP). <\/p>\n \t\t A similar move was made by the government last year, when it designated two of the UK\u2019s nine planned reservoir projects as nationally significant to fast-track their approval.<\/p>\n And yesterday, the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs announced measures to make it easier for farmers to build reservoirs on their land.<\/p>\n Reform has pledged to scrap the UK\u2019s climate targets and ramp up the use of fossil fuels if it gets into government.<\/p>\n \t\t Deputy leader Richard Tice is particularly fervent in his ambition to reverse the country\u2019s efforts to tackle climate change, which he has dubbed \u2018net stupid zero\u2019.<\/p>\n He has urged people not to invest in renewable energy, as Reform would steer firmly away from it if the party ever gets into power.<\/p>\n In an interview last year, he described the idea that human activity is responsible for rapidly increasing global temperatures as \u2018absolute garbage\u2019.<\/p>\n Tice told Sky News<\/a>: \u2018There\u2019s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change climate change<\/a>.\u2019<\/p>\n That view is rejected by an overwhelming scientific consensus, based on over a century of evidence, which says humans are to blame for the warming of the Earth\u2019s surface \u2013 primarily through the burning of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n For more stories like this, check our news page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow Arrow![\"BIRMINGHAM,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SEI_307370005-b1f6.jpg\")
\n\t\tPeople walk on the bed of the near depleted Edgbaston Reservoir in Birmingham (Picture: Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Mandatory](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SEI_307273015-adca.jpg\")
\n\t\tNigel Farage\u2019s deputy Richard Tice has said he \u2018fundamentally\u2019 disagrees with climate science (Picture: Victoria Jones\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n
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