Farage's £85 billion tax plan under fire as he heads to US bitcoin conference
29 May 2025, 16:04
More questions have been raised about Reform UK's economic policies, as Nigel Farage prepares to speak at a conference in America promoting Bitcoin.
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Sir Keir Starmer is the latest to weigh in on the party's £85billion spending proposals, telling voters they could not trust the Reform leader with their "future, mortgages or jobs".
On Tuesday, Mr Farage announced his five-year tax and spend plans during his highly anticipated first speech since Reform won four million votes and five seats last July.
As part of a series of pledges to woo voters in the Labour heartlands, he suggested axing the two-child benefit limit and restoring the winter fuel allowance for all pensioners.
Mr Farage also stated that his party wanted to dramatically increase the threshold for paying the basic rate of income tax from £12,570 to £20,000, and proposed a possible transferable marriage tax allowance.
But both Labour and the Tories have questioned how these new measures would be paid for, after experts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies said the proposed cuts could be underfunded by £85billion.
Questioning Mr Farage's ability to lead the country, Sir Keir asked voters in Warrington: "Can you trust him? Can you trust him with your future? Can you trust him with your jobs? Can you trust him with your mortgages, your pensions, your bills?
"And he gave the answer on Tuesday. A resounding no."
The PM also took a jab at the Clacton MP's appearance at the Bitcoin Conference 2025 in Las Vegas, saying: "Apparently (Mr Farage) is in Las Vegas today at a casino, and it's not a surprise, because he said that the Liz Truss budget in his view was the best since 1986. That shows his judgment."
The Prime Minister's comments come a day after The Conservatives branded the Reform proposals as "fantasy economics" and "Corbynism in a different colour".
Reform believe their transferable marriage tax allowance cut, which would exempt one spouse from paying any tax on the first £25,000 of their income, would incentivise people to marry and have more children by making it more affordable.
Mr Farage has defended his "credible" pledges by saying they would be paid for by scrapping net zero, which he claimed was "costing the Exchequer an extraordinary £40 billion plus every year".
He also accused the Prime Minister of "resorting to dirty tricks borrowed from the 2016 referendum campaign to attack me".
When asked about these "big savings", Reform MP Sarah Pochin said: "We have calculated that if we scrap these net zero white elephants projects, that the Conservatives were just as committed to as this Labour government, that over five years we can save £225 billion."
But the £225 billion figure was based on a report by the Institute for Government, which warned the majority of this green investment was due to come from the private sector, not from public funds.
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Jill Rutter, senior fellow at the IfG, told The Standard: “Cancelling private investment does not save the Government money."
Reform also failed to take into account that the IfG analysis highlighted the tens of billions of pounds in savings the UK would make from going green.
Furthermore, a leading economist also suggested the party's income tax plan could cost between £50 billion to £80 billion.
Stuart Adam, a senior economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said it would be “very difficult” to find savings to fund it without cutting public services.
Mr Farage did admit his sums were "slightly optimistic" but stressed that Net Zero was "destroying the country" financially.
He also claimed savings could be made by axing "crazy, woke" diversity, equality and inclusion schemes.
"We can't afford DEI, it's actually preventing many talented people from succeeding," Farage said.
"And we certainly can't afford young undocumented males crossing the English Channel and living in five-star hotels."You can argue about numbers adding up.
"You can probably argue that at no point in the history of any form of government has anybody ever thought the numbers added up."
