Nigel Farage's Reform UK manifesto 'doesn't add up', warn economic experts

One of the key parts of Reform's 'contract' is a pledge to leave European Convention on Human Rights, a body Nigel Farage criticised as being "out of date" on Monday.

What is the ECHR?

It's a human rights charter. It was advocated for by leaders such as Winston Churchill following the Second World War.

It started with the creation of the Council of Europe in 1949, followed by the adoption of the ECHR itself in 1953. The UK was one of the states which drafted the convention.

The European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, makes binding judgments on the ECHR.

What protections does it provide to us?

Rights, freedoms and protections in the ECHR include:

• right to life

• prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment

• prohibition of slavery and forced labour

• right to liberty and security

• right to a fair trial

• prohibition of retrospective criminal penalties

• right to private and family life

• freedom of thought, conscience and religion

• freedom of expression

• freedom of assembly and association

• right to marry

• right to an effective national remedy for breach of these rights

• prohibition of discrimination in the protection of these rights

Additional rights ratified by the UK include:

• abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances

• right to free enjoyment of property

• right to education

• right to free and fair elections

What could happen if the UK quits?

Liberty, the human rights campaign group, says leaving "would put everyone’s rights at risk".

It says the "UK government would have the power to do whatever it wants to individuals’ rights with no threat of consequences".

The ECHR, as former government lawyer Sir Jonathan Jones KC said in an Institute for Government article last month, has "profoundly influenced the protection of rights in the UK in areas including the treatment of homosexuals [and] corporal punishment in schools".

Economic experts have branded the tax and spending pledges in Reform UK's 'contract' as "problematic".

Carl Emmerson, deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the pledges would amount to around £140bn additional funding each year - £90bn in tax cuts and £50bn in spending increases.

On the NHS, Emmerson described Reform's plan to cut waiting lists to zero as "near impossible".

"Of the proposed spending increases, the largest is for the NHS (£17 billion per year). However, this would not be nearly enough to meet Reform’s incredibly ambitious commitment to eliminate waiting lists within two years," he said. "Eliminating the waiting list entirely is a feat that has not been achieved in the history of the NHS and seems near impossible within two years."

He added: "Even with the extremely optimistic assumptions about how much economic growth would increase, the sums in this manifesto do not add up. Whilst Reform’s manifesto gives a clear sense of priority, a government could only implement parts of this package, or would need to find other ways to help pay for it, which would mean losers not specified.”

Nigel Farage said he doesn’t “want to work with the OBR”.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was created in 2010 to provide independent analysis of the UK's public finances.

Asked about the comparisons between Reform’s plans and former prime minister Liz Truss’s mini-budget, he said: “I don’t want to work with the OBR. I mean they’re part of the problem, not part of the solution. We need radical, fresh thinking, we haven’t had it for years in this country. We are getting poorer.

He added: “Britain is broken, we’re presenting some radical ideas for how we can change that.”

Farage has not responded to criticism of how he would fund massive tax cuts and a huge increase in public spending with any detail.

Truss was widely criticised for refusing to allow the OBR to provide a full forecast of her mini-budget that hit the economy and ultimately forced her to quit.

A quick remind that tomorrow (18 June) is the deadline to register to vote in the election on 4 July.

This can be done online at the government website.

For more information about how to find out which candidate is standing in your local area, check out Yahoo's handy guide here.

Pressed on the calculation that his party’s plans would create a larger tax burden than Labour, Reform leader Nigel Farage said: “It’s absolute nonsense,”

He continued: “The ambition of this is to reduce the tax burden and to stop people doing jobs, a staff nurse paying 40% tax, eight million people paying 40% plus taxes in a couple of years time, that’s what we’re trying to address.

“And we’re not going to address it without growth, and we ain’t gonna get growth unless we incentivise men and women to set up their own businesses and be successful.”

For all the terror he triggers in Brian Cox, Nigel Farage is a saloon bar bore, not a beer hall putscher. Winning power doesn’t really interest him, writes William Atkinson for The Telegraph.

He has never had any sort of governmental responsibility: the perfect tribune for disgruntled Right-winger, who can be safe in the knowledge that none of his ideas really matter. Deport asylum seekers to the Moon? Sounds tremendous!

Read the full story from The Telegraph.

Reform UK’s plans to cut taxes while also massively increasing public spending has been branded “deeply unserious” as the party unveiled its general election “contract” with voters.

The document - which party leader Nigel Farage refused to call a manifesto - was launched as the right-wing party threatens to torpedo any lingering chance the Tories had of staying in power.

Read the full story from HuffPost.

Nigel Farage, whose entry into the election has damaged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's faint hopes of victory, set out his policy plans on Monday, describing them as the first step to becoming the dominant party on the right of British politics.

On Monday he said the earlier-than-expected election had come too soon for his Reform UK party but called on supporters of Sunak's Conservatives to "join the revolt" and pitched Reform as the only ones who could hold to account Labour, whose leader Keir Starmer is forecast to become the next prime minister.

Read the full story from Reuters.

On whether his party’s spending pledges would result in cuts to public services, 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.”

Nigel Farage says one in 30 people walking the streets has come here in the last two years.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest this claim may be correct when solely looking at arrivals to the UK.

However, this does not account for the large number of people leaving the country. Migration does not mean an extra person for every 29 already in the UK.

Read the full fact check from The Independent.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, told his party was proposing to spend an extra £141 billion every year, saying: “It’s radical, it’s fresh thinking, it’s outside the box, it’s not what you’re going to get from the current Labour and Conservative parties who are virtually indistinguishable, frankly, from each other.

“Is this radical fresh thinking on economics? Yes. Is it radical fresh thinking on constitutional change? Yes. Is it very radical change on the way our education system is currently bringing up our young children? Yes.

“Britain is broken, Britain needs reform, that’s what we’re here for, that’s what we’re trying to do, and Richard has also suggested some very interesting, radical changes to pay for it.”

Reform UK chairman Richard Tice acknowledged there are spending costs before adding: “But we also outline all of the savings.”

Reform at a record high in JLPartners poll.

Full Fact checks Nigel Farage's comment on GDP.

Wrapping up the round of questioning, Nigel Farage said: "We ain’t gonna win this election but we are well on our way to establishing that bridgehead in the House of Commons.

"We may well be a small party now, compared to Labour and the Conservatives, but we’ve got a very very big message."

Nigel Farage said the country was "skint".

Sky News asked him where he would find £50bn every year of public waste to fund his plan.

He replied: "Cuts to public sector, frankly they’re never in the office anyway, work from home, pop into Whitehall every couple of weeks.

"The bloating of the quangos, the bloating of the civil service... is just astonishing.

"All we’re gonna get with Labour is more of the same.

"We’re skint. Who else would dare say that in this campaign? We’re skint. We’re in real trouble. Let’s face reality, we have to have a slimmed down public sector.

Nigel Farage said he's been passed a hand grenade in taking over leadership of Reform.

Sam Coates from Sky News asked him: "In your contract you’re proposing to spend an extra £141bn every year, about 30 times more than Labour, the scale of this is deeply unserious"

Farage replied: "It’s radical. It’s outside the box. Britain is broken, Britain needs reform, that’s what we’re here for, that’s what we’re here to do. I’m unashamedly radical.

"It’s going to be a Labour government, we all know that, I said that two weeks ago when Richard passed me the ball or the hand grenade or whatever it was!"

Farage was asked by GB News to describe a 'typical Reform voter'.

He replied: "A very large number of Reform members are former members of the Labour Party, Lee Anderson being perhaps a very good example of that."

Farage dismissed the idea that his 'manifesto' was a wish list rather than a set of pledges.

Answering a question from the BBC, he said: "I see no inconsistencies with that whatsoever," adding that he intended to provide real opposition for the Labour Party.

"It is a promise, this is what we’re going to campaign for over the next five years. We are going to provide a voice of opposition and this outlines how we’re going to challenge Labour."

Richard Tice said that scrapping projects like HS2, getting rid of foreign aid, and cutting out waste in the public sector would mean the ability to "invest in the front line".

"If we get a million people off benefits and back to work, there's huge billions of savings," Tice said.

Another bugbear of ours is HS2, he said, adding "scrap the rest of it".

"People love common-sense policies," he concluded.

Farage, concluding his speech before he introduced 'Mr Nasty' Richard Tice - to talk through the costings, said: "As a party we are unashamedly patriotic. But as a party we’re radical, racidcal in terms of the way we want to change public services. We’re radical in terms of our view on the electoral system, the house of Lords.

"You can be both. You can be traditional and radical at the same time. We want real genuine change to give us a brighter stronger future.

"This is step one. Our real ambition is the 2029 election. I sense we’re doing really rather well."

Farage said the UK should have a 'radical' rethink of how it manages public services, including the NHS.

"We want to have an absolutely radical rethink of the way our public services are run, and yes that does include the NHS," he said. "All we want is an NHS that is free at the point of delivery that actually works.

"We would like the state to take far less of our money that it’s currently doing."

Farage said there were people on benefits who did not want to be.

"There are a lot of people on benefits who do not want to be on benefits," he said. "They do actually want to go back to work. The system massively disincentivises this."

Nigel Farage said law had broken down to the point that people could get away with shoplifting.

"We’re going to have to get much tougher on low level crime," he said. "And shoplifting! You can all go out and shoplift, it’s fine!"

Farage said Reform was on the side of the sole trader.

"We want to be on the side of the working people, the sole trader who feels government is their enemy, it is their enemy regardless of the colour of the rosette," he said. "The business community who genuinely thought and hope that by streamlining so many rules their lives would become easier.

He added: "One of the areas we need to spend money on is defence. This barmy idea that we’re going back to National Service - no we’re not. We’ve neglected defence very very badly."

Reform's 'manifesto' includes costing such as cuts from immigration and foreign aid.

Nigel Farage said he was a "Johnny come lately" on the party's manifesto, which he said was worked out by former leader Richard Tice.

Farage said the UK should scrap green energy policies that he claimed were driving people out of business and costing homeowners more money.

"We are pursuing net zero policies that are self-destructive," he said. "We want to get rid of the subsidies that are paid to green energy companies that are paid by levying taxes on the electricity bills of everybody."

Farage said the UK should leave the European Court of Human Rights, describing it as "out of date."

Nigel Farage said the 2024 election should be an immigration election.

"We believe this is what we should be talking about, but others would rather not discuss it," he said.

"One in 30 people on the streets of Britain today have come in the last two years alone," he said. "We want to have a proper honest debate about it.

"An overall freeze on net migration numbers is what we need at least for a few years."

He added: "It's only right and proper that you only get benefits in this country once you've been here for five years, obeyed the law and paid your taxes."

Nigel Farage said there was a huge difference of opinion on him even within parties, adding: "You've got Suella Braverman virtually proposing political marriage to me over the weekend and we have Lord Cameron generally being fairly abusive."

Farage said his campaign in 2024 was the "first important step on the road to 2029", adding to previous comments that he would like to be prime minister at the end of the decade.

He said: "The 18 to 24 age group are now coming to Reform’s cause.

"This election is for our party and for me the first important step on the road to 2029. Our ambition is to become a real opposition to a Labour government."

Farage said politics was dominated by "Westminster and Oxford University thinking".

"There is a huge gap between our political class and the people," he said. "I now believe that gap to be even bigger than it was back in June 2016."

Nigel Farage said he didn't care what other politicians thought about him, and was used to not being like, quipping "I'm even used to people throwing things at me."

Farage said he was running as an MP because he believed Britain was broken.

"I did not for one moment think I would be doing this. But I am. I'm doing it because I genuinely feel Britain is broken.

"We’re broken economically. We’re broken socially, we all feel less safe on our streets.

"We are in decline culturally. We’ve begun to forget who we are, what our history is, what we stand for."

He added: "We are going through a breakdown in trust in politics. Today specifically is not a manifesto launch. If I say manifesto your immediate word association is lie.

"Millions of Brexit voters out there are genuinely disappointed. It’s a failure of a sovereign government to implement the will of the people. I also think there is a distinct lack of leadership.

"People need some sense of being inspired."

Nigel Farage launched his election manifesto with a line from Eminem's Without Me, telling the crowd: "Guess who's back? Back again..."

Adam Smith’s dictum – that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation – is being tested to the limit in 21st century Wales, writes Annabel Denham for The Telegraph.

After 25 years of Labour control, it lags behind the rest of the UK on a range of metrics. Nigel Farage is wise to launch his “contract” with the people in Merthyr Tydfil, if his aim is to warn the British public just how much they might suffer under Keir Starmer.

Read the full story from The Telegraph.

Reform says it is the only party that can fix the NHS.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said his party does not share any values with Reform UK.

Asked if Reform is making things harder for the Lib Dems, Davey told reporters: “No, we don’t share any values with Reform, I think people know that.

“And they’ve got a right to stand, that’s fine, but I think if you look at the analysis of it they’re not going to win many seats, if any at all frankly. And people know that we can win seats, we’ve got MPs at the moment, we’ve won historic by-elections in the last parliament, Reform didn’t.”

Speaking from Broadsands Beach, Paignton, Davey said that “people are pretty angry” with the Conservatives in South Devon.

He added: “People who have always voted Conservative, families who’ve always voted Conservative are going to change that.

“It’s quite difficult for some people to do that but they really want to do it this time because they can’t bear the lack of integrity, the lack of competence, they’re just out of touch. Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are just out of touch.”

Anti-Brexit group Best for Britain says its analysis confirms that Labour is in a strong position to win Clacton and stop Nigel Farage becoming an MP.

The claim came as part of a wider tactical voting analysis by the group published this morning for 452 seats across the UK including a plan to unseat prime minister Rishi Sunak, his chancellor Jeremy Hunt and predecessor Liz Truss.

The news has broken as Farage plans to unveil Reform’s “contract with the people” in Wales, his party’s version of a manifesto and has declared that he will be prime minister in 2029.

Read the full story from The Independent.