This is an edited extract from Nigel Farage’s speech in Doncaster on 1st October, delivered at the launch of his 100 Days to Save Britain tour.
Today is when our general election campaign starts. I will be out on the road every week between now and the general election, whether it happens this year, next spring or in three years’ time.
The biggest upset with politics is the feeling that parties tell the electorate, every time there’s a general election, what they think the electorate wants to hear. But they never actually have within them the genuine desire to carry those policies out.
I want to tell you that I’m not here to do that.
In the first 100 days of a Reform government, we will stop the boats crossing the English Channel. I don’t care if the House of Commons has to sit 24 hours a day for six days a week.
You may have seen the agreement I signed at our conference just the other week with Jordan Bardella - who’s the odds-on favourite to be the next French Prime Minister - to stop the boats and return illegal Channel migrants to France.
We will end the insanity of Net Zero, get Britain working again, get Britain reindustrialised, and begin that process. But within 100 days we will cut £250 off your energy bills, by scrapping green levies and ending VAT on household energy.
We will, in the first 100 days, raise tax thresholds, which have been frozen for years. We will raise the tax-free personal allowance from £12,570 to £15,000. Working has to pay more money than being on benefits.
We will get rid of subsidised, ludicrous, woke university degrees and replace them with proper apprenticeships.
I want to say to the British people that we are a party that believes in Britain. We’re a party that respects and is proud of British history. We’re a party that stands up for our culture, understanding the Judeo-Christian roots that underpin everything that we are as a nation and a civilisation.
And we believe we can do a damn sight better than the current lot.
I will never, ever bow down to foreign courts or do anything that is against our national interest. I will always put the national interest first and the interests of British citizens first, second, third and above absolutely everything else.
I fully understand - as you do, as a sizeable majority do - that politics has failed our country. That we are going down the tubes. That time is running out. That this has to be turned around. That it won’t be easy.
It’ll be tough. There will be many people who try to stop us, many who try to maintain the status quo, many who try to keep their own positions.
Burnham keeps talking about the vested interests. The vested interests are those who get the OBEs, the knighthoods, the peerages and the government contracts.
If you wonder why we’ve been getting bad press over the summer, that’s because, for the first time in 100 years, a new political party has come along that can upset the apple cart and spoil their little game.
We have to stand and fight. We have to turn around this decline. We have to change the whole psychology of this nation.
The next job is to win the next general election. And that starts today.
Watch the full speech here.
Today is when our general election campaign starts. I will be out on the road every week between now and the general election, whether it happens this year, next spring or in three years’ time.
The biggest upset with politics is the feeling that parties tell the electorate, every time there’s a general election, what they think the electorate wants to hear. But they never actually have within them the genuine desire to carry those policies out.
I want to tell you that I’m not here to do that.
In the first 100 days of a Reform government, we will stop the boats crossing the English Channel. I don’t care if the House of Commons has to sit 24 hours a day for six days a week.
You may have seen the agreement I signed at our conference just the other week with Jordan Bardella - who’s the odds-on favourite to be the next French Prime Minister - to stop the boats and return illegal Channel migrants to France.
We will end the insanity of Net Zero, get Britain working again, get Britain reindustrialised, and begin that process. But within 100 days we will cut £250 off your energy bills, by scrapping green levies and ending VAT on household energy.
We will, in the first 100 days, raise tax thresholds, which have been frozen for years. We will raise the tax-free personal allowance from £12,570 to £15,000. Working has to pay more money than being on benefits.
We will get rid of subsidised, ludicrous, woke university degrees and replace them with proper apprenticeships.
I want to say to the British people that we are a party that believes in Britain. We’re a party that respects and is proud of British history. We’re a party that stands up for our culture, understanding the Judeo-Christian roots that underpin everything that we are as a nation and a civilisation.
And we believe we can do a damn sight better than the current lot.
I will never, ever bow down to foreign courts or do anything that is against our national interest. I will always put the national interest first and the interests of British citizens first, second, third and above absolutely everything else.
I fully understand - as you do, as a sizeable majority do - that politics has failed our country. That we are going down the tubes. That time is running out. That this has to be turned around. That it won’t be easy.
It’ll be tough. There will be many people who try to stop us, many who try to maintain the status quo, many who try to keep their own positions.
Burnham keeps talking about the vested interests. The vested interests are those who get the OBEs, the knighthoods, the peerages and the government contracts.
If you wonder why we’ve been getting bad press over the summer, that’s because, for the first time in 100 years, a new political party has come along that can upset the apple cart and spoil their little game.
We have to stand and fight. We have to turn around this decline. We have to change the whole psychology of this nation.
The next job is to win the next general election. And that starts today.
Watch the full speech here.
