Farage promises £18bn of tax cuts

The Ukip leader revealed plans for an early referendum on withdrawal from the EU, a radical reduction in immigration and increased spending on defence as he launched the Ukip manifesto under the slogan Believe In Britain.

Declaring “we want our country back” Mr Farage said that Ukip was the only party in the May 7 General Election to argue that the UK should be a free self-governing nation, able to make its own laws and negotiate its own trade deals, and trading with the European Union as “good neighbours”.

After dismissing the Ukip manifesto for the 2010 election as “drivel”, Mr Farage said that the spending and saving commitments in this year’s much slimmer document was fully costed and independently verified by the Centre for Economics and Business Research thinktank.

Launched in the Ukip target seat of Thurrock in Essex, the manifesto has at its heart an early referendum on Britain’s EU membership, which Mr Farage believes will pave the way for withdrawal, allowing the UK to impose tighter immigration controls and thereby relieve pressure on public services.

The £18bn “low tax revolution” which would see the threshold for paying income tax raised to £13,000, the higher-rate 40p threshold lifted to £55,000 and a new 30p rate on earnings between £45,000 and £55,000.

The party identified savings totalling £32bn by the end of the Parliament in 2020, including a “radical” cut in overseas aid; the ending of contributions to the EU; the scrapping of “vanity projects” like the HS2 rail link between London and the North; and reform of the system for distributing of state cash, to cut funding for Scotland and give a “fairer deal” for England and Wales.

Mr Farage has made clear he will put pressure on David Cameron to bring forward the in/out EU referendum he has promised for 2017, and he dismissed the Prime Minister’s plan to seek reform of the UK’s membership ahead of the poll, insisting that there was “no renegotiation of any value that is to be had in Brussels”.