Farage targets Tories with 'contract' slated by critics

Nigel Farage has parked his tank firmly on Rishi Sunak’s lawn with a manifesto designed to win over disgruntled Tory supporters and an extraordinary prediction he will be prime minister after the 2029 election.

- ARCHIE MITCHELL, DAVID MADDOX

Launching Reform UK’s “contract with the people”, the archBrexiteer appealed directly to right-wing voters with policies including a freeze on non-essential immigration, scrapping net zero targets and pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

His controversial pledges came as one prospective candidate was forced to stand down over historical comments urging people to vote BNP, while another described Adolf Hitler as “brilliant”.

Jack Aaron, who is standing against defence secretary Grant Shapps in Welwyn Hatfield, made comments online praising Hitler’s “brilliant tactics”, while Syrian president Bashar-al Assad was “gentle by nature”.

While right-wingers revelled in Reform UK’s wishlist of pledges, economists and experts ripped it apart for its fantasy economics and dangerous high-carbon anti-net zero policies.

Sam Fankhauser, professor of climate economics and policy at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, told The Independent: “Reform UK would like Britain to be a high-carbon island in a low-carbon world, missing out on 21st-century technology, innovation and growth. Our own research shows that the UK can meet its 2030 net zero targets with just six to eight billion pounds of additional public sector investment a year – a small price to pay for a liveable planet.”

Meanwhile, the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) concluded that Reform’s sums “do not add up”. IFS deputy director Carl Emmerson said the party’s planned spending cuts, such as its £50bn crackdown on “wasteful government spending”, would save less than stated, while the proposed tax cuts would cost tens of billions of pounds more.