According to City trader-turned politician Nigel Farage – who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life – we need a countrywide “attitudinal change to hard work, rather than work-life balance”.
The Reform leader says we need to end working from home, and cram workers back into offices, in the name of increased productivity. This gives you an idea of the kind of attacks Reform would seek to carry out, once it gets into power.
This tirade is yet another culture-war issue on a small scale, this time pitting ‘cushy’ white-collar office workers – increasingly paid little more than minimum wage, by the way – against those who don’t have the option of working from home.
🚨 WATCH: Nigel Farage calls for an end to working from home and the focus on work-life balance
“People aren’t more productive working from home – it’s a load of nonsense. They’re more productive being with other fellow human beings” pic.twitter.com/UpjNoh7ZHX
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) February 9, 2026
Naturally, several big companies see the money they’re losing on floorspace and building maintenance on half-filled city centre offices, and agree with him.
Bosses at JPMorgan and Amazon are on the same page as the former chief executive of Asda and M&S: if you’re working from home, you’re not doing ‘proper work’, and you’re contributing to the general decline of the country’s economy. I don’t think it’s quite that simple though.
I work in the healthcare sector. In my own office, there are several physically disabled members of staff who’ve been expected to work without the necessary access adjustments – from having an accessible bathroom on the same floor, to being allowed to use an appropriate monitor to fit their needs.
A lot of our contact centre colleagues were hired during the pandemic, and have never worked in the office at all. Some are more productive at home, whereas others are not. Some are more able to work from home, whereas others are not.
Working from home can mitigate some childcare costs for families, or enable people to care for sick or disabled members of their household. It cuts personal costs on transportation and increases opportunities for people who cannot commute to and from a workplace.
On the other hand, some people feel that working from home can be isolating, alienating, and blur their work-life boundaries.
As someone who’s seen the messy side of forcing people back into the office, I say that it’s the workers – those who know and do the job – who should be making these decisions.
Naturally, working from home isn’t possible in many industries – manufacturing, hospitality, and healthcare, among others – but in the industries where it is possible, surely it should be for the workers to decide!
We cannot allow the priorities of bosses and demagogues like Farage to divide the working class. Whether at home or in a workplace – work under capitalism is exploitative, burdensome, and inaccessible for everyone.
A day in the life of a delivery driver
Alice, Preston
When I first signed up to drive for Uber, I bought all the promises the company offered.
Flexible hours. Being my own boss. Easy money when I needed it. I was struggling trying to find a job so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. But that illusion didn’t last long.
A job will come through on the app for just £3. The job is always framed as quick and simple – five minutes, maybe even less. In reality, that same job can and will take 30-40 minutes. Heavy traffic. Unsafe roads. Bad weather. Long waits at restaurants. None of this time is paid, none of it counts.
When delays inevitably happen, it’s always the driver who takes the blame. The app marks you as late, even when the delay is completely out of your control. Customers who are frustrated and hungry take it out on the person standing in front of them, and then the bad rating comes in.
These ratings are discipline. Too many bad ratings and the work dries up, with fewer jobs and worse pay. If you try to push back against the AI support bot, and your claims are closed without resolution.
Push too hard, and you’re deactivated. No warnings, conversations, or appeals. In any other job this would be recognised as unfair dismissal. In the gig economy it’s routine – and every driver knows it could happen to them next.
Uber – and other ‘gig’ companies like Deliveroo, JustEat, and Evri – insists it doesn’t employ workers. There’s no boss, supervisors, or fixed schedule – just an app. But all that means is that the control has been automated.
Using a rating system that pits worker against worker – customer against driver – the companies stay untouchable. All the risks sit with the drivers: fuel, insurance, vehicle costs, injuries, time. If something goes wrong, it’s never the platform’s fault – the algorithm is ‘neutral’.
They get away with this by pretending we aren’t workers at all. By calling us ‘independent contractors’ or ‘associates’, they dodge minimum wage laws, sick pay, holiday pay, and basic protections.
What’s happening in the gig economy is a warning of where work is heading under capitalism: fewer rights, lower pay, constant surveillance, and punishment without accountability. Technology could be used to make our lives easier and fairer. Instead, it’s being used to tighten control, and ramp up exploitation.
The gig economy lays bare the often hidden logic of capitalism: our exploitation isn’t a bug, it’s by design. Nothing short of collective struggle can end this.
