This article subjects the much vaunted ‘ban’ on ‘fire & rehire’ in the Employment Rights Act 2025 to thorough scrutiny. It touches on the content of the legislative restrictions on ‘fire & rehire’ and ‘fire & replace’, including the role of the concept of ‘restricted variations’, the partial automatically unfair dismissal model adopted by the legislation, the exception that applies in the case of employers experiencing severe financial difficulties and the remedies available where an employee is successful in their legal claim. On the issue of the likelihood of success of the legislation, something of a pessimistic outlook haunts the entirety of the article. This leads on to the overarching proposition that the remedies associated with the reforms may produce a Pyrrhic victory for ‘successful’ employees, to the extent that the so-called ‘ban’ on ‘fire & rehire’ and ‘fire & replace’ in the legislation will amount to nothing of the sort.
