Reform UK’s election blueprint included a pledge to lift the income tax threshold to £20,000-per-year. But now the massive tax cut is described only as an ‘aspiration’
Nigel Farage looks set to rip up his manifesto plans for mega tax giveaways in the first 100 days of a Reform UK government.
The right-wing party’s election blueprint last year included proposals to lift the income tax threshold to £20,000-per-year in a move that would save “every worker almost £1,500 per year”. A £90billion giveaway also included plans to abolish inheritance tax for all estates under £2million, cuts to stamp duty and slashing fuel duty by 20p per litre.
At the time the Reform’s plans were ridiculed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who said the sums in the manifesto “do not add up”.
But Mr Farage said his party will now “ensure savings are made before implementing tax cuts”. He told The Times: “At the next election, we will present a rigorous and fully costed manifesto.
“Reform will never borrow to spend, as Labour and the Tories have done for so long. Instead we will ensure savings are made before implementing tax cuts.” He added: “I will have more to say on all this in the coming week.”
His deputy Richard Tice also distanced the party from key planks of the election document on Monday, telling Times Radio: “A manifesto is based on a point in time. The principles behind it are absolutely rock solid. We said we’ve got to make very significant savings in order to fund a different way to run the economy.
“What’s happened since then is that the state of the economy, because of the mismanagement by this Labour government, the numbers have got far worse.”
Mr Tice also described the manifesto pledge to lift the income tax threshold to £20,000 as an “aspiration”. He added: “As an aspiration, that is absolutely the plan, the principle behind it. But we cannot do any of this, given the state of the finances, until we deliver on the savings.”
Pressed on another proposal – to cut fuel duty by 20p per litre – he added: “All the other details go because we’re in a different time.
“We’re focusing on the savings, deliver on the savings, deliver on the regulation cuts, that the way we change the way that you run and manage this economy, then you can get performance related tax cuts further down the road only when you’ve delivered on the savings.”
A Labour Party spokesman told The Mirror: “Nigel Farage has finally admitted what everyone already knew: Reform’s economic plans are built on sand.
“Farage continues to flirt with Liz Truss’s economy-crashing unfunded pledges – which would leave family finances at risk. Working people simply cannot trust Reform. They offer anger but no answers. Only this Labour government is focussed on renewing Britain, so that we can grow the economy and put money back in people’s pockets.”
In a brutal assessment of Reform’s manifesto last year the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned at the time the plans would require substantial cuts to public services.
And they warned: “Even with the extremely optimistic assumptions about how much economic growth would increase, the sums in this manifesto do not add up.”
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