Reform Will Tackle ‘Population Explosion’, Says Farage

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage launches 'Our Contract with You' while on the General Election campaign trail in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, on June 17, 2024.Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Nigel Farage has said Reform UK will tackle the “population explosion” caused by years of “uncontrolled” immigration.

The Reform leader launched the manifesto—dubbed the “contract“ with the British people—in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, on Monday where he outlined the party’s ”radical” rethink of public services, taxation, and education.

Many of those issues relate to immigration, Mr. Farage said, explaining, “The population explosion and the impact that it’s had on people’s lives is the dominant issue.”

“How can you discuss NHS waiting lists, without discussing the fact that the population has risen by six million people? [...] How can you talk about a shortage of housing, where we need to build one new dwelling every two minutes, just to cope with current levels of net migration?

“How would you talk about any of these things? So we believe this is what we should be talking about,” Mr. Farage said, before condemning the Conservatives for failing to get immigration under control after 14 years in power and criticising Labour for not acknowledging the impact that immigration has had on people’s lives.

The 2024 General Election has become “the immigration election,” the parliamentary candidate for Clacton said.

Leave the ECHR

The contract says that within the first 100 days of a Reform government, the party would freeze all non-essential immigration to “relieve the pressure on our housing, public services, increase wages and protect our culture, identity and values.”

Exceptions would mainly be around healthcare.

The party also said it would leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which would stop interventions from Strasbourg judges on the UK attempting to deport foreign nationals.

Mr. Farage, who resumed his role as leader of the party after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for an election on July 4, said that leaving the ECHR would be the “only way to really fully restore sovereignty to decide who can come in who can stay.”

“Zero illegal immigrants to be settled in the UK,” the document says, adding that illegal immigrants caught attempting to cross the English Channel in boats would be taken “back to France.”

‘Scrap Net Zero’

The party also took aim at the climate agenda, which both major parties have remained committed to in varying degrees in their own manifestos.

Reform would “scrap net zero and related subsidies,” which the party said could save the public sector over £30 billion a year for the next 25 years.

“Net Zero is pushing up bills, damaging British industries like steel, and making us less secure,” the document said, continuing that Reform would “fast track” licences for North Sea oil and gas as well as grant shale licences.

Greener solutions would follow with the advancement of new technologies and with ethical UK lithium mining, “but we must not impoverish ourselves in pursuit of unaffordable, unachievable global CO2 targets.”

Lifting Income Tax Start Point to £20,000

Reform would scrap VAT on energy bills and get rid of environmental levies as well as lowering fuel duty by 20p per litre in a bid to beat the cost-of-living crisis.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage launches 'Our Contract with You' while on the General Election campaign trail in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, on June 17, 2024.Ben Birchall/PA Wire

The party would raise the income tax start point from £12,570 to £20,000—freeing up seven million people from paying income tax, Reform says—which Mr. Farage called the most “innovative” proposal in his party’s contract.

The lift would also function as a “key incentive” for those on benefits to get back to work, the contract says, which also pledges reforms to training to “help people back into work.”

No Transgender Ideology in Schools

Reform addresses leftist ideology in schools, promising that “transgender ideology” would be banned throughout all school years, including “no gender questioning, social transitions or pronoun swapping.” All schools would be mandated to have single-sex facilities.

The party also proposes a “patriotic” curriculum, with the manifesto saying that any teaching of British or European imperialism or slavery “must be paired with the teaching of a non-European occurrence of the same to ensure balance.”

School curricula would be reviewed regularly and universities that undermine free speech will have their funding cut.

Reform UK chairman Richard Tice (left) and party leader Nigel Farage launch 'Our Contract with You' while on the General Election campaign trail in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, on June 17, 2024. Ben Birchall/PA Wire

‘Real Opposition’ to Labour

Mr. Farage described Reform UK as “unashamedly patriotic,” but also “radical.”

“We’re radical in terms of the way we want to change public services. We’re radical in terms of the way the education system in this country needs to operate. We’re radical in terms of our simplification of the tax system,” he said.

The party leader acknowledged that Reform was not going to win the election next month, but that the campaign represents the “first important step on the road to 2029.”

“Our aim and our ambition is to establish a bridge head in Parliament, and to become a real opposition to a Labour government,” he said.