What follows is the UKIP 2018 Interim manifesto.  You may also view the PDF of the manifesto here.

Under my leadership I want UKIP to be a ‘populist party’ in the real sense of the word – a party whose policies are popular with the voters. In recent times the word populist has been turned into a derogatory term. This is because the political and media establishments across the western world stand for and promote so much that is deeply unpopular with their own peoples. These unpopular policies include: government from Brussels by the EU, open-border uncontrolled immigration, and imposing an alien politically correct cultural agenda on their peoples.

This Interim Manifesto cannot possibly include every policy area or every detail, it represents a summary of where UKIP is now. It is a dynamic document, and policies will be developed further in the future.

UKIP stands for a complete and total withdrawal from the European Union. UKIP was the only party to publish a Brexit plan, entitled, ‘Brexit Must Mean Exit. Taking Control. The UKIP Plan for Leaving the European Union’ (July 2017). This is available to read or download from the UKIP website, www.ukip.org

UKIP believes in an NHS free at the point of delivery. The NHS is in crisis, not just from a lack of adequate funding but because of the inefficient use of funds, Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract liabilities, and ever-increasing demand from foreign nationals who should have no entitlement to use its services free of charge.

Mass uncontrolled immigration has been extremely damaging to Britain. We have imported cheap labour by the million. This not only exploits migrants but depresses the wages and living standards of those at the bottom end of the economic scale, and drives up property prices and rental costs. In 1997 the official British population figure was 58 million people. The figure in 2017 was 66 million. A recent report showed that the 6.6 million population growth between 2000-2016 was 80% due to migrants and births to migrants 2 . Such a rate of increase is simply unsustainable in one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

The UK does not have a housing problem - it has a demand problem, with demand being fuelled by mass uncontrolled immigration. Supply of housing simply cannot keep up with demand. We cannot stabilise the housing problem until we have controlled immigration.

Britain is a nation of commuters, for work and for pleasure. Whether our journeys take us on the daily commute to work, on a cross country commercial delivery haul, or the school run, everyone needs a comprehensive and reliable transport network.

Post Brexit, Britain’s foreign policy no longer needs be linked to the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, which would inevitably involve us in the EU’s planned armed forces and embroil us in its foreign policy ambitions. We should put the needs of our own citizens first. Our foreign aid budget is often wasted on corrupt regimes, or given to countries that can afford their own atomic weapon and space programmes.

Our prison service is in disarray and close to meltdown. It is under-funded, under-resourced, privatised to make profits for private companies, and in some instances the prisoners are taking control of the prisons. Around 11% of the prison population are foreign nationals – over 9,000.

Post Brexit, the UK will be free of the costs and impositions of the Common Agricultural Policy. We will move from a system which subsidises large landowners to one that supports food producers and environmental protection.

Britain’s trade policy has been under the control of the European Union since we joined in 1973. Our businesses have been obliged to obey EU legislation, even when they do not export to the EU. Leaving the EU will free Britain to pursue its own trade and commercial policies, which offer enormous opportunity for increased trade and employment.

Britain’s manufacturing has been in steady decline for many years. We now have a massive and growing trade deficit in goods with the EU. In the 25 years of membership of the EU Single Market the UK’s deficit in goods with the EU has grown remorselessly from £5 billion in 1992 to £96 billion p.a. in 2016. The deficit with the whole world totalled £134 billion (2016) or 6.5% of GDP.

The UK needs a mix of energy sources comprising nuclear, conventional and renewable. Brexit will allow the UK to set its own future energy policy, with lower prices and more secure supplies.

Britain’s 5.7 million small and medium sized businesses make up around 50% of the jobs in the UK. They are the lifeblood and the backbone of the British economy. Many a young person’s first job is with a small or medium sized business.

Animal welfare standards in the UK are some of the highest in the world. Much of the current EU legislation relating to welfare for pets, farm animals, wild animals, and animals used in research, has been drawn from the UK. When we leave the EU, we will be able to take back control of animal health and welfare legislation, and to update and improve our laws to ensure that animals in the UK have the most robust protections.

Constitutional and political reform is a pressing issue if we are to restore faith in our democratic system. Under the first-past-the-post voting system MPs are usually elected on a minority of the votes cast. Most votes don’t elect anyone. In the General Election of 2015 UKIP achieved 3.8 million or 12.6% of the vote. This was exactly the same percentage as the combined vote of the Liberal Democrat and the Scottish Nationalists, and yet they won 62 seats compared to UKIP’s single seat.14 The Electoral Reform Society calculated that under one of the proportional voting systems available UKIP would have won between 54 to 80 seats in the 2015 election.15 Meanwhile, the unelected and appointed members of the House of Lords represent no one but themselves.

The UK population in 2017 was estimated by the Office for National Statistics at 66m. England makes up the vast majority of the population at 55.6m (84.2%), with Scotland at 5.4m (8.2%), Wales at 3.1m (4.7%), and Northern Ireland at 1.8m (2.8%). Although England is the largest constituent part of the UK, with the largest population, English identity has been all but airbrushed out of our national life.

UKIP believes in allowing our people their traditional rights of freedom of conscience, liberty and speech. These rights have been eroded over recent decades by the burgeoning concepts of so-called ‘hate speech’, driven by the political doctrine of Cultural Marxism, which seeks to close down discussion and alternative views, so that only one extreme left-wing ‘politically correct’ viewpoint is allowed.

The national debt currently stands at £1.78 trillion or 86.58% of GDP. The annual cost of servicing this debt (paying interest) is currently around £39.4 billion per annum, approx. £108m per day.18 Every area of spending should be scrutinised. UKIP believes in small government and low taxation, and unnecessary spending must be cut to help pay for those services we need. Some of the policies itemised above will save money, some will cost money. UKIP does not intend to raise taxes but wants to reduce taxation wherever possible. Therefore, where expenditure is indicated above we would look to save money in other areas to pay for it.

Many of the above are national policies that would apply to the whole of the UK. However, UKIP in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will publish their own Manifestos at the appropriate times

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