Patrick O'Flynn Election 2017

Thank you, Peter, good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming

along. This is a most unusual election. Not only does the outcome

not appear to be in doubt but most commentators do not think the result

is even going to be close, so it couldn't be more different to the

contest we had in 2015. As a former political journalist I am on good

terms with MPs from across the spectrum and I haven't met a single

one over the last few weeks who doubts privately that Britain is

heading for another Tory administration with an enhanced

majority. A narrow party political times, Theresa May has time to the

contest perfectly, before the substance of EU negotiations have

got under way and while she is still on a political honeymoon at the

official opposition is in total disarray. From the point of view of

Ukip's self-interest, we could be forgiven for finding it galling that

the ever pragmatic Tory party has lately donned so many of our

clothes, and isn't it interesting, clothes, and isn't it interesting,

by the way, that Theresa May is being ferried around the country in

the very battle bus that was used for the Conservative Remain campaign

this time last year? Rather like her, it has had a message reads

comfort for Ukip is that when the comfort for Ukip is that when the

Tories are turned with a bigger Daugherty it will be with an

exquisite mandate to take Britain out of the European Union. -- a

bigger majority. The very thing that we have campaigned for for so long

and they have resisted for so long. The price of power for the pragmatic

Conservatives will have been to receive an instruction from the

electorate to return our country to the ranks of independent

self-governing democracies. Ukip candidate great pride in that

and if we can get candidates over the line in places where they are

strong, it will assist us in performing to the central role over

the coming period, that's to our pragmatic conservative colleagues

honest on Brexit. From my point of view, this corporate trait of the

Tory party to rank the attainment and retention of power ahead of

advancing a principled agenda has always been a cause of regret. In

the old question is asked, are you in politics to be someone ought to

achieve something, we even Ukip without hesitation opt for the

latter and I just hope the passage of time shows this Prime Minister is

motivated either same spirit rather than that of her immediate

predecessor who once famously remarked that he wished the Prime

Minister simply because he thought he would be good at the job. Eight

addiction but of course turned out to be incorrect. Speaking as the

Ukip economics spokesman I want to set out another challenge for the

Conservatives today. That is to shed their reputation being slavish in

their devotion to the already wealthy and well-connected at the

expense of aspirational working people. They will not achieve that,

I suggest, through gimmicks such as I suggest, through gimmicks such as

guaranteeing workers a year of unpaid leave to look after elderly

relatives. I think people will recognise that as an unfair burden

of uncertainty but small businesses and also as the government papering

over the cracks of the structural damage it's done to the social care

system through ?4 billion worth of cuts. The fact is that there is

still a stench in the political Ayr left by the recently departed

Cameron Osborne regime. A regime that for instance favoured the tax

avoiding boot over the self-employed black cab drivers and cup top rate

of tax for those earning over ?150,000 a year even as it was

taking child benefit from families earning a third of that amount. --

Uber. My challenge to the Chancellor Philip Hammond is to prove in this

election campaign via the economic policies he sets out that the Tories

are not mainly in it for the rich because despite his party's poll

rating, that is what millions of voters still believe. He could do

this in a number of ways. First and most important of all he could and

should explicitly rule out unleashing a new national insurance

raid on the self-employed. The pernicious measure he set out in his

budget and that Ukip vehemently opposed would have picked two and a

half million workers, 1.6 million of whom are basic rate income tax

payers, costing them an average of ?240 a year. When he withdrew the

measure he did so only because it contravened the terms of the 20 15th

Tory manifesto which will of course fall into obedience after this

election. The Chancellor said he still thought raising national

insurance on the self-employed was the right approach. So if national

insurance rises for the self-employed are not specifically

ruled out in the Conservative manifesto, then we will note that a

Tory tax bombshell is on the way, aimed not at the rich but at

plumbers and plasterers, electricians and taxi drivers,

hairdressers and personal trainers. All the signs are that Mr Hammond is

planning a targeted attack on white van men and entrepreneurial women,

people who work long hours to provide for their families and take

pride in their locality and donation. People who drive

themselves hard and occasionally perhaps there are fans quite fast!

Ukip will always be on the side of such self-reliant people because we

as a party or made up of people just like that, that is why we were the

only party with a dedicated manifesto chap in 20 15th about

helping small businesses. -- chapter. And that's why be wouldn't

dream of plotting national insurance hikes to make our sums add up

because we either that has the courage to confront unnecessary and

wasteful public spending programmes such as the excessive foreign aid

bill, the excessive public spending settlement for Scotland via the

Barnett formula and the vanity project of HS2. Instead of lining up

self-employed for punishment, Mr Hammond would do much better to put

some real political effort into cracking down on the big

multinational corporations which dodge tax in the UK. In the run-up

to the 20 15th election, I argued for a tax backstop to be created

that food for the biggest international companies, create a

tax obligation based on their turnover in the UK. If they were

continually unwilling to make a reasonable contribution to the

running costs of our society. So I was pleased when the Treasury came

forward with its diverted profits tax to do this very thing. Where

there was evidence of aggressive tax avoidance. But diverted profits tax

has to say the least, had a very slow start. I can only find

reference to one company being asked to make a significant payment under

it, this insipid approach and the Conservatives has come in the face

of mounting evidence of continued aggressive tax avoidance by highly

lucrative multinational enterprises. -- Diaggeo. Starbuck reported

profits of 13 million on a UK turnover of 300 pounds and

corporation tax contribution fell to just two points seven million pounds

down from the year before. I ask how can a vast as Ms that sells coffee

in paper cups all over the country for ?2.50 a pop end up paying

corporation tax contribution amounting to much less than 1% of

its turnover. With -- with the taxman be happy to accept pro rata

contributions from an independence copy shop, good self-employed

taxpayer submitting returns four times a year get away with that, I

think we know the answer to those questions and as we also know,

Cameron and Osborne's friends at the top of Uber channel many of their

businesses profits through a complex financial network in the Netherlands

thereby depriving the British public realm of significant sums. Its

behaviour like this from the big boys that calls out the UK

taxpayers, not the amount of national insurance squeezed out of

the self employed in the geek economy. Yet time and again you see

the Conservative Party giving favourable treatment to the rich and

powerful and looking like it's dumping on the up and coming. It's

not unattractive trait and neither is upon which Theresa May has yet

found a way of taming. I also challenge the Conservatives who are

stealing plenty of our policies to steal another one in the interests

of working people and that's our proposed moratorium on immigration

for unskilled and low skilled employment. In her 2015 Tory

Conference speech delivered when she was Home Secretary, the Prime

Minister herself pointed out the perils of wage compression in

working-class occupations due to excessive immigration. Is she

willing to face down the vested interests of corporate written in

the interests of ordinary working families? The jury is out on that

one but there seems little reason to be optimistic. And isn't it time as

Ukip proposes to phase out the green levies placed on every family's

domestic energy bill and paid in subsidies to already wealthy

landowners who put up when farms on their land? In the wake of the

financial crisis ordinary British taxpayers make huge sacrifices to

protect the stability of the financial system. People earning an

average of ?26,000 a year coughed up to bail out the banks, they should

have changed the economic culture in Britain but to date, it has not,

indeed George Osborne placed a very high priority on looking after the

financial services sector and now in the form of his lucrative part time

employment with Blackrock, the financial services sector is looking

after him. It's small wonder then people working in industries such as

fishing gear it they will be sold short by the Conservatives and in

the fishing industry context bartered away in Brussels for a

minor concession to the City of London. Whose mighty lobbying power

can always blow them out of the water. The economic agenda of Ukip

is to speak up not just for the left behind, but for the left out, those

who work hard to quote Michael Howard's old phrase, played by the

rules but have no special connections or market power. There's

the Prime Minister and Chancellor go out of their way to prove

differently, then despite an imminent election victory, their

party will continue to be regarded as the one that auctioned off

prestige internships for university undergraduates at one of its black

and white fundraising balls, thereby going and extra mile to ensure the

glittering prizes for the rising generation in our country are

restricted once again to a privileged minority. Ukip will

continue to be the party that speaks for those outside Tory magic circle,

if we can get representatives into the House of Commons at the

selection, that task will be so much easier. But even if we can't, that

task will be done and if we can succeed in pressurising the Tories

to change their economic outlook as we have done in changing their

European policy, then that will be another feather in our cap. In the

meantime, my head is two to two and a half million self-employed people

is to think very carefully indeed be for voting Conservative. At this

election because if you do so, you might as well be handing the

Chancellor at the very dagger he is planning to plunge into your backs.

Thank you. And has anyone got any questions? Sky News. Given the

opinion poll ratings at the weekend, your leader has spoken about staying

on the field. This election was never one to be about our vulture,

we acknowledge the political context has changed a lot since 2015 and we

never learnt in 2015 having a high vote share spread rather evenly

across the country can result in grievous disappointment. So the key

test for us is can we concentrate our vote and campaign well enough in

the areas we are very strong to get some people across the line and

also, to put down markers for the future about issues such as Brexit

being the overarching issue, things we can hold the Prime Minister to

account for over the next couple of years. I think the signs are quite

good in a good cluster of seats for we are strong and within about half

of those target seats, the canvassing returns are very

promising indeed. Thank you. Policy question, the National wage, will it

be raised or lowered, you mentioned the looked Hammond, aren't you risk

of turning into a pressure group? Ukip, I don't think anyone has ever

measured the success of Ukip according to a jar of how many

people we get into the House of Commons, we are perhaps the

political party that has also been the most successful pressure group

of the entire 21st-century in terms of the EU agenda, the debate over

mass immigration. But you know, I am setting something out and it isn't

an unusual election, it appears a foremost conclusion that Philip

Hammond will be walking back on to number 11 Downing St on less those

rumours of disagreements between him and the Prime Minister turned out to

be even more severe than we think. The Conservatives are over recent

days, claiming to be called the party of working people and I think

that's an assertion and claim that deserves to be very rigorous leak

tested and I've set up to date lots of different ways in which that

clearly is simply not true. A challenge for them to do much more

radical things, too, away from their old bias towards the well-connected,

privileged, the already wealthy. The minimum wage... On the minimum wage,

I'm absolutely behind the minimum wage and actually minimum wage with

an aspiration to be lifted towards the living wage but the level at

which a minimum wage becomes a living wage, I think depends on

other factors most notably the availability and cost of housing and

I think under current immigration and population growth trends, I

don't think anyone could be really confident in five years time the

so-called living wage really will be that. BBC News you addressed the

issue of Brexit, I hear you are railing against the axis of

business, how does your message... I don't really associate the words

lost and Brexit in the same sentence, I would rather see it as

we'd have won the issue of Brexit and actually, the price but the

Conservatives, their ratings in the opinion polls has been to accept our

agenda, apparently accept it because they've timed the selection before

the substance of negotiations has begun, before people can really test

if they are now true believers. I've set out a few examples of the Tory

party tending towards pragmatism over principle. So I think the

Brexit agenda, we are still the true believers in Brexit, we have driven

the agenda, we've now got to be there to keep the Conservatives

honest on it because they need to know, don't they, if they come away

from that, if they compromise Brexit away, there will be a political

price to pay and certainly, I don't see the voters looking to the Labour

Party, the Liberal party, the Green Party to make the Conservatives pay

the price if they come away from Brexit so I don't agree that the

word lost should be used in the same sentence as the word Brexit and

Ukip. I think it's our greatest triumph. You talked about big

business and companies, how are you distinguishing yourself? Because

unlike the Labour Party we don't want to allow continued Unlimited

immigration for working-class occupations which not only cause

wage compression and stagnation of incomes, it also puts massive

pressure on public services, on housing, and there is an employment

effect as well, whereby some of our unemployed people don't get jobs

because of excessive immigration and I think Theresa May also recognised

that in the Tory Conference speech of Autumn 2015, so we couldn't be

more different, I don't really think a Labour Party that is still

proposing no limits on immigration into working-class jobs and

neighborhoods can possibly claim to be the party of working people and

The Telegraph. You have said the be believed.

The Telegraph. You have said the Conservatives have largely accepted

your agenda. Will you become part of the Conservative Party? I don't

think that will happen at all. I'm almost certain it won't. There have

been instances of people moving from the Conservatives to Ukip and from

Ukip to the Conservatives in the ebb and flow of politics. But I am

absolutely certain that Ukip distinctive party is going to

continue. We will continue picking up items in the political agenda,

whether that is now to do with the excessive foreign aid bill at the

cost of underfunding for our National Health Service, whether it

is as being bowled on the integration agenda, -- whether it is

us being bold on the integration agenda. Yes, we are all for a

multinational immunity, but everyone must subscribe to our values of

freedom of speech and the law. I absolutely don't think there is

going to be any soft merger, if you like, between Ukip and the

Conservatives. We believe different things and we have a different

approach to politics. What about the need to rebrand the party? More than

any other party, Ukip is tied to a single identity. I think it is a big

task and it was a task that Paul was task and it was a task that Paul was

preparing over the months ahead with a significant staging post being the

party conference in 2017, in the autumn. Before all party leaders

were rudely interrupted by the Prime Minister foreshortening the

Parliament. That will be a task in the years ahead. I still think that

Ukip can do many things but it has got to do only one thing to be true

to its roots and that is to be the guard dog of Brexit, or the

insurance policy for Brexit voted as Nigel Farage has put it, and we do

need to drive the government during the remaining 22 months of our

formal membership of the European Union. Every. -- whether we are tied

to freedom of movement, whether we have jurisdiction, what happens to

the fishing industry and our maritime zone. All these issues,

that is the first duty of Ukip. We have had many thousands of members

who fought this battle when it was incredibly unfashionable and some of

them have not lived to see the day them have not lived to see the day

of the referendum victory, and we owe it to them all to pursue that

agenda right until the end of March 20 19th, so that Britain resumes

membership of the ranks of self-governing democracies. -- March

2019. That will be Ukip's dream and 2019. That will be Ukip's dream and

our top priority until it is achieved. Aren't you effectively

helping the Conservatives by not standing candidates in seats with

Tory margins? I think I have just laid out by the achievement of

Brexit in the fullest possible way has got to be the very top priority

of Ukip. When Paul Nuttall set out our approach to this election, we

did make clear that we would be guided by the views of our branches.

Many of our branches have had conversations with sitting

Conservative members. Labour members as well in the case of Kate and

Kelvin, for example. But sitting Conservative members and

Conservative candidates in seats where a Brexit supporting

place to Remain MP. We have put our place to Remain MP. We

country before our party in standing aside in those seats. That puts a

very heavy burden of responsibility on the people who will benefit from

that to stay true to the agenda and to meet the assurances they have

given. You might see a big swing of opinion a couple of years down the

line of people we have stood aside for don't remain true to what the

left describes as hard Brexit and the rest of us describe as Brexit.

If you win no seat in the selection, will the party continue? Yes, the

cluster of target seats, which we cluster of target seats, which we

don't advertise by name, and in the best of those things are very

promising. We are on the way to promising. We are on the way

creating a political microclimate in creating a political microclimate

some places, rather like the Green some places, rather like the Green

Party very cleverly achieved in Brighton. And we would hope to get

people benefiting from that over the line. Even if we don't under first

we still have that absolutely we

overarching agenda to see through the process of Brexit for the next

two years and I think we have already begun to outline some new

political ideas and a new political agenda, that again as a patriotic

party we feel these issues need speaking up for and we can't rely on

the established political parties to do the case of the integration

crisis of our society. How many is a cluster? More than a handful and

less than a barrow full! There you go. At the back? The Daily Mirror.

INAUDIBLE. I think in that situation, the

actual initial thing would be their presence would tell a Prime Minister

who was arguing to you guys in the European Union this time last year

that there is a real political price to be paid if she compromises the

fundamentals of Brexit. Other than that it is to be there as Prime

Minister's Questions in other House of Commons events arguing the case

for our agenda on for instant reducing the foreign aid bill. Yet

again we go into this general election with all the parties

represented in the House of Commons wanting to spend more on foreign

aid, even as we see the proliferation for instance of food

banks in our own country, the health service and the social care system

crying out for more resources. And indeed this issue of integration and

British values and being patriotic about our own country. I think there

are lots of things that are Ukip MP or MPs could do and that would be

very advantageous to us but this show will go on whether or not we

are in the House of Commons and we have shown before that we can

influence the agenda from outside as well. Yes? Go on. Your candidate

numbers this time are well down. Under 400. Doesn't that show that

you can't get people to stand for you? If we had been absolutely

desperate to, I am quite sure we could have fielded a candidate in

almost every seat, as we did last time, but things have changed. The

governing party is formally committed to Brexit. I hope and

believe that when they do release their manifesto, it will say that.

Our party, our branches, many of them are regarding this general

election as a kind of second referendum, knowing that the Remain

parties will collect any bit of evidence they can glean and stumble

on to say there is buyers remorse out there. In many cases our

branches have made an active decision to stand aside because they

have had reassurance from another candidate best placed to win or hold

the seat that they sign up to our agenda of the true Brexit. I think

it is just a radically changed political context which accounts for

the fewer number of candidates. Right. Thanks ever so much.