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UKIP launches policy blitz

Friday, 12th October 2007

David Campbell Bannerman

The UK Independence Party has launched a broad range of policies for a better Britain described as "radical, different and unique to us" by the party's Deputy Leader and Head of Policy, David Campbell Bannerman.

"What Britain needs," Mr Campbell Bannerman told the party's annual conference in London, "is a return to good, common-sense policies."

He added: "Only UKIP can get rid of the 75% of our national laws that come from the EU. Only UKIP can get rid of the 120,000 directives and regulations that hold us back. And only UKIP can recover the £50 billion a year it costs us to be part of this racket."

UKIP had taken the decision to broaden its policy base, Mr Campbell Bannerman said, and had formed no fewer than 17 policy groups. Their work was now complete and their detailed policy papers would be published during the coming weeks and months.

He went on to outline the main points of UKIP's wide-ranging policy stance, which he said set it apart from the other three main parties, describing them as "like drowning men on a sinking ship":

UKIP will leave the political EU and trade globally and freely. We will re-embrace today's fast-growing Commonwealth and we’ll encourage UK manufacturing – we’ll make things again.

We will freeze immigration for five years, speed up deportation of up to a million illegal immigrants by tripling the numbers engaged in deportations, and have "no home, no visa" work permits to ease the housing crisis.

We will have a grammar school in every town. We will restore standards of education and improve skills training. And student grants will replace student loans.

We will radically reform the working of the NHS with an NHS Insurance Fund, whilst upholding "free at the point of care" principles. We will bring back matrons and have locally run, clean hospitals.

We will give people the vote on policing priorities, go back to proper beat policing, and scrap the Human Rights Act. We will have sentences that mean what they say.

We will take 4.5 million people out of tax with a simple Flat Tax (with National Insurance) starting at £10,000. We will scrap Inheritance Tax not just reform it, and cut corporation taxes.

We will say No to green taxes and to wind farms. And to avert a major energy crisis, we will go for new nuclear power plants on the same existing sites facilities and for clean coal. We will reduce pollution and encourage recycling.

We will make welfare simpler and fairer, introduce "workfare" to get people back to work, and a new citizen's pension and private pensions scheme insurance.

We will support our armed forces with more spending on equipment, military homes and medical care. We will save our threatened warships, and add 25,000 more troops.

We will be fair to England with an English Parliament of English Westminster MPs. We will replace assembly members like MSPs with MPs. And we will promote referendums at local and national levels.

We will make customer satisfaction No.1 for rail firms not cost cutting, and will look seriously at reopening some rail lines that idiot Beeching closed. We will make foreign lorries pay for UK roads with a "Britdisc" – and we’ll stop persecuting motorists.

We will bring in fair prices and fair competition for our suffering farmers, and restore traditional British fishing and territorial waters.

Mr Campbell Bannerman told the conference: "Whilst our primary aim is to leave the European Union, and will always remain so, as a party we can and must offer a range of domestic policies that are generally radical, different and unique to us. Because only UKIP offers the British people the opportunity to leave the European Union and to regain our freedoms, our independence and to prosper internationally outside of it."

Read David Campbell Bannerman's conference speech

For more policy speeches go to Conference 2007 To watch the speeches on video, go to UKIP TV

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