UKIP’s manifesto for the general election, due to be launched on Wednesday, will contain a host of pledges on tax and public spending cuts as well as a sharp reduction in foreign aid.
Breitbart London can reveal the document will pledge to increase both the transferable tax allowance for married couples to £1500, and the threshold for paying 40% tax to £55k. There will also be a long-term aspiration to restore the personal allowance for those earning over £100k a year and an end to the 45p rate of income tax.
On public spending, the party has maintained the existing pledges to scrap HS2, withdraw from the EU and reducing the foreign aid budget from £11bn a year to £2bn a year. UKIP says this will bring international aid down to the same percentage of gross national income as the USA.
A UKIP government would focus the £2bn foreign aid to pay for basic clean water and sanitation programmes, infant inoculations and disaster and emergency relief. The party also wants to end long-term bilateral aid agreements with what they describe as “corrupt foreign governments”.
The estimated saving of all these measures combined is around £23bn a year by the end of the next Parliament. But the manifesto also commits to changing the funding system within the UK to make it fairer. Under the terms of the so-called “Barnet Formula” Scotland is given a much higher level of spending per capita than England. UKIP will pledge to get rid of this, saving an estimated £3 – £8bn a year.
The manifesto document says it is unfair that “Scotland should receive higher than average public spending per capita while also moving towards further tax-raising powers of its own.”
Outside the areas of tax and spending, UKIP propose to give employers the right to discriminate in favour of British workers. This is currently impossible, as EU regulations force the government to treat all citizens of the bloc equally. However, once the UK has withdrawn from the EU the right to favour British workers could be passed.
UKIP say they believed there is a “community benefit” every time a British national is put into a job that does not result if a foreign job-seeker fills the post.
But it is not just in the field of employment that UKIP is promising to favour the needs of the British over those who seeks to come to the country. Immigrants who are convicted of a crime will lose any entitlement to a UK passport, to unrestricted exit and entry to the country and the right to vote in elections.
This will end the current situation whereby EU nationals with criminal convictions can come to the UK. UKIP also propose to deport all foreign criminals once they have served a prison service. They will be forced to appeal the deportation from their country of origin at their own expense. This will make it far harder for criminals to stay in the country by delaying appeal proceedings.
The document also contains pledges to maintain the benefits cap, a crack-down on benefits fraud and a requirement that immigrants work in the UK for five years before they can claim benefits. The party also want to limit child benefit to two children, both of whom must live in the UK to qualify.
UKIPs manifesto is due to be launched in Thurrock on Wednesday and it has been the subject of some ridicule because it had been significantly delayed. However, it is being published on the same week as both the Conservatives and Labour. Party sources have told Breitbart London they had wanted to come up with policies that would have a broad appeal to both working class and middle class voters.