Nigel Farage today claimed he would move to ‘stop the boats’ within 100 days as he launched Reform’s ‘contract’ with voters.
The former MEP complained that the country was ‘broken’ as he unveiled the election prospectus – conceding at the same time that he will never be able to implement it.
While arguing he wants to be PM in 2029, Mr Farage conceded: ‘We are not pretending we’re going to win this election… That is not possible.’
He said his aim on July 4 was to create a ‘bridgehead’ and show the ‘huge gap’ between the desires of the public and what the main parties were offering.
The document includes commitments to slash £50billion off public spending, leave the European Court of Human Rights, and ban all ‘non-essential’ immigration. It suggests that moves to ‘stop the boats’ – including sending migrants back to France – would start within 100 days.
Along with stripping the Bank of England of key powers, those policies are meant to fund an extraordinary £140billion splurge, largely on tax cuts, the NHS and defence spending.
The party is also proposing making St George’s Day and St David’s Day bank holidays, and abolishing the BBC licence fee.
The insurgents are billing its proposals a ‘contract’ as Mr Farage says the public has lost faith in the term ‘manifesto’.
However, the respected IFS think-tank said the plans ‘do not add up’ – with tax cuts reducing revenue by more than the party claims, and savings not generating as much revenue.
And Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the idea of Mr Farage being PM was ‘ridiculous’, branding Reform ‘a giant ego trip’.
In other twists and turns today:
Underlining his pitch to voters, Mr Farage said: ‘You might not want to vote for what we say. But we do say what we mean.’
Reform’s big day got off to a shaky start with deputy leader David Bull wrongly claiming that the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog has signed off its spending plans.
The document was unveiled in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, as Reform tries to show that it is taking on Labour as well as the Tories.
Mr Farage said the location was chosen ‘because it shows everyone exactly what happens to a country when Labour is in charge’. He said Wales had drifted in a ‘leftist, woke direction’.
Mr Farage said: ‘We are not pretending that we are going to win this General Election, we are a very, very new political party.’
He added: ‘This is not something with which we’re going to govern the country. That’s not possible in this election.
‘Although this election is for our party, and for me, the first important step on the road to 2029.
‘Our ambition is to establish a bridgehead in Parliament, and to become a real opposition to a Labour government.’
He said the Tories would not be able to provide opposition because ‘they spend most of their days arguing among themselves, and they’re split down the middle when it comes to policy’.
Mr Farage said there needs to be a ‘rethink’ on the NHS, saying: ‘We’re not getting bang for our buck and there’s a growing level of disenchantment that the health service simply isn’t fit for purpose not just in the way that it used to be, the way that we want it to be.
‘So let’s look at other funding models, let’s look at how the French do it, let’s be radical in our thinking.’
Mr Farage said the UK is ‘skint’ and ‘in real trouble’ as he suggested having a ‘slimmed down public sector’ while maintaining services.
On whether his party’s spending pledges would result in cuts to public services, Mr Farage said: ‘Well cuts to the public sector, I mean, frankly, they’re never in the office anyway are they? It’s work from home, pop into Whitehall a couple of days a week.’
He added: ‘If you’re running a company and things are tight, you say to your managers and middle managers, ‘Right, I’m sorry, this is the way it is, you’ve got to cut £5 in £100′ – in fact in tough times it might be £10 in £100 or £20 in £100, and you have to find a way of doing that without affecting the product that we’re selling to the public.’
Mr Farage added: ‘Some of these things we’re proposing are tough but, look, the accumulated national debt is now £2.7trillion, it was just under £1trillion when the Tories came to power, we simply cannot go on like this.
‘We’re skint. Who else would dare say that in this campaign? We’re skint, we’re in real trouble and the nonsense of economic argument we hear from Rachel Reeves and Jeremy Hunt never acknowledges the fact that both of them expected to be in deficit next year by yet another £100billion.
‘So we’re saying let’s face reality, we have to have a slimmed down public sector, we have to do that whilst maintaining services.’
Interviewed on Sky News this morning, Dr Bull was asked if Reform had shown its plans to the OBR and respected IFS think-tank.
‘We have and we’ve spoken to top economists…’ he replied.
Pressed by Kay Burley on what the OBR had said about the manifesto, Dr Bull said: ‘I can’t tell you what the OBR said because I didn’t speak to them… ‘
Challenged on how he knew they had been consulted, Dr Bull said: ‘Because I do, because we know that we’ve had due diligence across all our policies.’
When Burley probed whether he was sure about the OBR being asked, Dr Bull said: ‘As far as I’m aware, yes.’
The presenter reminded him that he said the watchdog was ‘definitely’ consulted.
‘OK, I’ll go with definitely. We will have done,’ he replied.
An OBR spokesman said: ‘The OBR is prohibited from considering policies that are not announced by the Government and has not evaluated any party manifestos.’
Stepping up attacks on Reform, Mr Gove told Times Radio: ‘Nigel Farage is part of a great entertainment machine. He is not someone who can govern this country.
‘Reform is a giant ego trip, not a serious programme of alternative change. Nigel Farage provides amusement and diversion. What he does not provide is authority and good governance.’
IFS deputy director Carl Emmerson said: ‘Reform UK proposes tax cuts that it estimates would cost nearly £90 billion per year, and spending increases of £50 billion per year.
‘It claims that it would pay for these through £150 billion per year of reductions in other spending, covering public services, debt interest and working-age benefits.
‘This would represent a big cut to the size of the state. Regardless of the pros and cons of shrinking the state, or of any of their specific measures, the package as a whole is problematic.
‘Spending reductions would save less than stated, and the tax cuts would cost more than stated, by a margin of tens of billions of pounds per year.
‘Meanwhile the spending increases would cost more than stated if they are to achieve their objectives.’
He added: ‘Even with the extremely optimistic assumptions about how much economic growth would increase, the sums in this manifesto do not add up.’
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Mr Farage said: ‘(The Conservatives) can’t agree on anything, they’re split down the middle, and we know what we stand for, we know what we believe in, and for democracy to function properly there needs to be a proper voice of opposition.
‘And our plan – and this is our first big election as a party – our plan is to establish that bridgehead in Parliament and to use that voice to build a big national campaigning movement around the country over the course of the next five years for genuine change.’
Asked if he would seek to be PM at the next election – due by 2029 – Mr Farage replied: ‘Yes, absolutely. I think the disconnect between the Labour and Conservative Westminster-based parties and the country – the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of ordinary people – are so far apart from where our politics is.’
Mr Farage claimed the idea that Donald Trump wanted to overturn a democratic election is a ‘matter of opinion’, adding: ‘What happened on January the 6th should not have happened, of that there’s no doubt whatsoever. Did he actually urge people to storm the Capitol building? No, he didn’t.’
When pressed on the issue, he said: ‘No, I don’t approve of objecting to elections, even though I object to much of what’s happening in our system, with postal vote corruption and many other things.’
Senior Conservative figure David Davis warned that Farage was ‘trying to destroy’ the Tories, as the party continued to see Reform eating into their vote.
He told Times Radio: ‘Farage is trying to destroy the Conservative Party. That is his explicit aim.
‘When somebody tries to burn down the golf club, you don’t offer them membership, do you?’
Ex-Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick took his attack to Richard Tice, accusing the Reform chairman of being a Labour ‘sleeper agent’.
Mr Jenrick added: ‘I not only understand the frustrations of Reform voters, I share them.
‘But a vote for Reform can only deliver a Labour one-party state that increases taxes and immigration.’