Farage launches election ‘contract’ promising to tackle ‘population explosion’

Nigel Farage has launched the Reform election manifesto which he describes as a “serious plan to reshape the way our country is run” as his party pledges to tackle the “population explosion”.

Reform has chosen to title its election document “Our Contract With You”, with the leader having previously stated the party believes people associate the term “manifesto” with “lies”.

The contract was launched in a run-down community centre in Gurnos in south Wales, as the party sought to drive home “exactly what happens to a country when Labour is in charge”.

In the foreword, Mr Farage says: “The Tories have broken Britain. Labour will bankrupt Britain. A vote for either is a vote for more dishonesty and defeat.”

He adds: “Once and for all, we will take back control over our borders, our money and our laws.”

Immigration

The first two of the party’s five core pledges are on immigration, as it pledges to freeze “all non-essential immigration” which it claims will “boost wages, protect public services, end the housing crisis and cut crime.”

Reform claims it would “stop the boats” in its first 100 days with a four-point 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 remaining three core pledges ask voters to “imagine no NHS waiting lists”; “imagine good wages for a hard day’s work” and “imagine affordable, stable energy bills”.

Tax cuts

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

Reform plans to fund these tax cuts by raising £40 billion from reducing the interest paid on Bank of England reserves, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said such a measure is “unlikely to raise even half” of that sum.

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

Further measures 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”.

Commenting on Mr Farage’s manifesto launch, Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds MS said: “Nigel Farage is a snake oil salesman who wants to move the NHS to an insurance-based model, something unlikely to ever appeal to the Welsh public.

“The Welsh Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign for real solutions to the problems we face including fixing the crisis in social care to save our NHS”