Nigel Farage says Reform’s ‘real ambition’ is the next general election

Published

5 months ago

June 17, 2024

admin

Nigel Farage has acknowledged Reform UK will not form a government after 4 July – but said the general election campaign is the “first big push” towards the next contest.

Launching his party’s offer to the electorate – which he is calling a “contract” rather than a manifesto – Mr Farage said his campaign has “momentum” around the country, including the support of a “rapidly increasing” number of 18 to 24-year-olds.

Election latest: Farage challenged over spending plans

Speaking in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, he said there had been a “breakdown of trust” in politics and hoped Reform would “establish a bridgehead in parliament” to “become a real opposition” to a Labour government.

“We are not pretending that we are going to win this general election, we are a very, very new political party,” he said.

“This is step one. Our real ambition is the 2029 general election. But this is our first big push.”

Mr Farage earlier confirmed his ambitions to become prime minister at the next general election, which could be in 2029.

Reform’s policy document runs to 25 pages – compared with 133 published by Labour – with the first two of the party’s five core pledges on immigration, including promising to freeze “all non-essential immigration”.

The party claims it will “stop the boats” in their first 100 days in power, with a plan that would involve leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), with zero illegal immigrants being resettled in the UK, a new government department for immigration, and migrants crossing the channel in small boats being returned to France.

The other three core pledges ask voters to “imagine no NHS waiting lists”, to “imagine good wages for a hard day’s work” and also “imagine affordable, stable energy bills”.

Reform are also promising a raft of tax cuts, including raising the minimum threshold of income tax to £20,000 a year, abolishing stamp duty, and abolishing inheritance tax for all estates under £2m.

The party plans to fund its policies with measures including abandoning net zero targets, the introduction of an immigration tax, and through £50bn savings on “wasteful government spending”.

On health, Reform wants to create an “NHS voucher scheme” for private treatment if people can’t get seen by a GP within three days and to hold a public inquiry into excess deaths and “vaccine harms” from the COVID vaccine.

? Tap here to follow Politics at Jack and Sam’s wherever you get your podcasts ?

Further offers include ditching all net-zero policies, ending “woke” policing, and legislating for “comprehensive free speech” that promises “no more de-banking, cancel culture, left wing hate mobs or political bias in public institutions”, as well as stopping “sharia law being used in the UK”.

Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates questioned Mr Farage over the proposed additional £141bn of spending every year, asking: “The scale of this is deeply unserious, isn’t it?”

Mr Farage said the plan is “radical, it’s fresh thinking – it’s outside the box”.

In a lengthy exchange, the Reform leader said he has no intention of joining the Conservatives but stopped short of categorically ruling out his future membership of the party.

His party last week overtook the Conservatives for the first time in a single YouGov poll for The Times, but the Tories are currently an average of seven points ahead.

Rishi Sunak has repeatedly said a vote for Mr Farage’s party amounted to handing a “blank cheque” to Labour, whom the polls predict will form the next government.

Reform has faced questions over the vetting of its candidates, with Grant StClair-Armstrong, who was standing in Saffron Walden, the Essex constituency where Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch was the most recent MP, offering his resignation on Sunday.

It followed reports in The Times that he had previously called on people to vote for the British National Party (BNP).

Last week another Reform candidate apologised for an old internet post which said Britain should have “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality” instead of fighting the Nazis in the Second World War.

Ian Gribbin, who is standing in the East Sussex seat of Bexhill and Battle, told Sky News that he apologised and withdrew the comments “unreservedly”.

Politics

‘There is a global race underway for Bitcoin’ — Anthony Pompliano

Published

2 hours ago

November 16, 2024

admin

<div>'There is a global race underway for Bitcoin' — Anthony Pompliano</div>

The election of a pro-crypto President in the United States and growing macroeconomic turmoil will continue to drive investors to Bitcoin.

Politics

Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions ‘all day long’ as farmers slam ‘disrespectful’ PM

Published

4 hours ago

November 16, 2024

admin

Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions 'all day long' as farmers slam 'disrespectful' PM

Sir Keir Starmer has said he will defend the decisions made in the budget “all day long” amid anger from farmers over inheritance tax changes.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month in her key speech that from April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.

The announcement has sparked anger among farmers who argue this will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay for the tax.

Sir Keir defended the budget as he gave his first speech as prime minister at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales, where farmers have been holding a tractor protest outside.

Sir Keir admitted: “We’ve taken some extremely tough decisions on tax.”

He said: “I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality. I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.

“And I will defend protecting the payslips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy, and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales. Finally, turning the page on austerity once and for all.”

He also said the budget allocation for Wales was a “record figure” – some £21bn for next year – an extra £1.7bn through the Barnett Formula, as he hailed a “path of change” with Labour governments in Wales and Westminster.

And he confirmed a £160m investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire will be going live in 2025.

‘PM should have addressed the protesters’

Among the hundreds of farmers demonstrating was Gareth Wyn Jones, who told Sky News it was “disrespectful” that the prime minister did not mention farmers in his speech.

He said “so many people have come here to air their frustrations. He (Starmer) had an opportunity to address the crowd. Even if he was booed he should have been man enough to come out and talk to the people”.

He said farmers planned to deliver Sir Keir a letter which begins with “‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.

Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News the government was “destroying” an industry that was already struggling.

“They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically. We need government support not more hindrance so we can produce food to feed the nation.”

He said inheritance tax changes will result in farmers increasing the price of food: “The poorer people in society aren’t going to be able to afford good, healthy, nutritious British food, so we have to push this to government for them to understand that enough is enough, the farmers can’t take any more of what they’re throwing at us.”

Mr Wyn Jones disputed the government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.

“Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”

On Friday, Sir Keir addressed farmers’ concerns, saying: “I know some farmers are anxious about the inheritance tax rules that we brought in two weeks ago.

“What I would say about that is, once you add the £1m for the farmland to the £1m that is exempt for your spouse, for most couples with a farm wanting to hand on to their children, it’s £3m before anybody pays a penny in inheritance tax.”

Ministers said the move will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.

But analysis this week said a typical family farm would have to put 159% of annual profits into paying the new inheritance tax every year for a decade and could have to sell 20% of their land.

The Country and Land Business Association (CLA), which represents owners of rural land, property and businesses in England and Wales, found a typical 200-acre farm owned by one person with an expected profit of £27,300 would face a £435,000 inheritance tax bill.

The plan says families can spread the inheritance tax payments over 10 years, but the CLA found this would require an average farm to allocate 159% of its profits each year for a decade.

To pay that, successors could be forced to sell 20% of their land, the analysis found.