UKIP Event Election 2017

are under instruction from the court...

It's clear from the shenanigans over the last few days that the European

Union believes this government can be pushed around. They also believe

that the British people should be punished for Brexit and forced to

pay a ridiculous divorce Bill. This Bill has risen from 50 billion to

100 billion in just a few days. We heard the Brexit secretary say this

morning that we won't be paying the latter figure. But what we want to

know in Ukip is how much is the government willing to pay? As far as

Ukip is concerned, we should not be paying anything at all. We believe

the Prime Minister must make it clear to the bureaucrats that she is

prepared to walk away. Because if she does not, they will walk all

over her, and Britain will get a rotten deal. If the Prime Minister

wants to be seen as a custodian of the cars Ukip has fought for all its

political life, she must show more resolve, more confidence in our

great country. And she must make it perfectly clear to the EU, Britain

is prepared to walk away. Because as it has been said before, no deal is

better than a bad deal. And what the EU is offering at this present

moment in time is a terrible deal. Let me speak briefly about foreign

aid before my colleague takes to the podium. Polls show that the majority

of British people want to see foreign aid cut, 78% back in January

this year. Ukip is the only political party going into this

election with a clear commitment to cut the foreign aid budget. Ukip is

on the side of the majority of the British people on this issue. And we

have been so since we took up this cause as far back as 2011. We

believe British taxpayer money should be spent here in our own

country and on our Roman people. It cannot be right that we are handing

over about ?30 million -- on our own people. We have an underfunded NHS,

veterans sleeping rough and schools bursting to maximum capacity. We are

not afraid to say in our party, a charity begins at home. And on that

note, I want to hand over to our economic spokesman Patrick O'Flynn.

Good morning and thank you for coming along. I want to set out

early in this election campaign one or two of the ideas that Ukip will

be advancing that distinguish us from the establishment political

parties. When making the case for Brexit and immigration control, Ukip

will fight this election unafraid of standing up the common sense, and

practical policies to put the British people first, even in the

face of a politically correct establishment that is likely to

hyperventilate in response. We want to take advantage of Britain

gaining freedom over indirect taxation when it leaves the EU by

removing VAT from domestic energy bills, from hot takeaway food, and

from women's sanitary products. The last of these is a cause that Ukip

has championed for many years, and which I am pleased to say has become

a lot more fashionable at Westminster. But the two biggest

items in our cost of living package are liable to face strong resistance

from the establishment. The first is grabbing the green levies and taxes,

that already add hundreds of pounds on two family tax bills. That

amount, by the way, increases every single year. Ukip would end such

subsidies as we do not believe they are justifiable or proportionate

given that Britain is responsible for less than 2% of global

greenhouse gas emissions. And given the long-term squeeze on their

living standards that millions of families have suffered. One of the

best things about this policy is that it will put money back in the

pockets of ordinary people without costing the Exchequer a penny. The

last item in our cost of living package is exciting parts of the

media, the proposal to scrap the television licence. It really is

time to act is the TV tax. -- axe the TV tax.

I think the idea would be laughed out of court and felt to have more

in common with the politics of North Korea than a modern, liberal

democracy. In the rot of online streaming of Amazon and net flicks,

of satellite and cable, of multipurpose devices that can be

telephones one minute and televisions another. The licence fee

has come to broadcasting what the horse and cart is to transport.

Obsolete. It is beyond ridiculous as well that so much my District Court

time is spent on low income families, including single mothers

doing their best to raise families in difficult circumstances, and they

are criminalised by the attempt to enforce a fee that is losing

legitimacy every year, as well as requiring an even greater degree of

intrusion to collect. Just seven years ago when I was a political

journalist, I became the first one to steer a national newspaper to a

pro-Brexit position, and many thought that was away with the

fairies. So today, I am joining the campaign to abolish the licence fee.

No doubt, just as with the case the leaving the EU, our friends at the

BBC may be slow to give this cause serious coverage. The failure of the

BBC to adapt to our polarised political era, to be self-critical,

or to guard against the group think that can occur when too many people

in an organisation come from a similar background and live in

geographic proximity that is the clinching argument here for me.

Looking at the research of the excellent News Watch Group is an

eye-opener. A devastating indictment of the BBC's unbalanced approach to

covering many issues from climate change to the case for Brexit. Let

me give you a statistic, which let out at me. Between 2005 and 2015,

only 3.2% of guests on the title actor Dave programme, talking on the

EU, were pro-Brexit. In my view, it is indefensible to

make millions of people pay for a dominant national news broadcaster

that has a deep-seated bias against their own views on a wide range of

issues, from immigration control to penal policy, climate change policy

to the future prospects of their country as an independence of

governing democracy. So what I propose is that the licence fee

should be phased out over three years, during which time, the many

talented administrators at the BBC could agree with the government and

all eternity of funding package, based on subscription, but with an

element of advertising potentially, too. -- alternative of funding

package. I expect the BBC to undertake this to offer eight core

offering on free view, including regional TV news, and also to

continue to support the local radio network as a free to our offering.

There would also be a new public service broadcast fund financed from

within current DC MS resources to which any broadcaster could apply

for grants. I am not standing here pretending Ukip will be the

government on June, the ninth, able to increment the straightaway, but I

have to remind you that Ukip has been stunningly effective that

changing the terms of British politics by connecting with a

section of the public on issues ranging from immigration control to

Brexit. And another one of these issues forms the main subject of

today, and that's written's current approach to foreign aid. This is, to

spend 0.7% of national income on foreign aid, and it is going up year

after year in an era when pupil funding per head in schools is being

slashed, when the NHS is under President did pressure, and when our

Armed Forces have been cut to the extent that you could fit the entire

regular British Army inside Wembley Stadium with nearly 10,000 empty

seats. Yet the foreign aid policy has what's known in Westminster as

cross-party support. Among MPs, this is taken to be a virtuous thing as

it stops the debate about aid becoming what they referred to as a

political football. But what they really mean here is that it allows

them to disenfranchise the views of the British public by offering only

one choice when it comes to aid funding. Ukip is going to break up

that political monopoly and offer a different choice to the millions of

voters, a clear majority according to most polling, who want to see

less spent on aid, and more on our key domestic, public services. In

our party, we believe the prime responsibly to you of a British

Government is to fight to advance the interests and improve the

condition of the British people. The politically correct text trotted out

in the Commons is often unchallenged. We at Ukip will be the

party that challenges it at every turn. High foreign aid, some say, is

justified because its densely migrate reflow is on the masses.

There is no evidence for that. The aid bonanza of the last decade or so

has come and sided with a massive increase in migrate reflow is. --

coincided. If people can leave one society and join another where

living standards are typically 20 times higher, and there is an

extensive welfare system available to all, how on earth will any

conceivable amount of foreign aid make a significant difference to

that choice? Furthermore, there is very little evidence that foreign

aid helps economic growth in recipient countries anyway. For

instance, a World Economic Forum study in 2015 conducted by

impeccably liberal academics at Heidelberg University found no

effect of aid on growth, and gave an overall assessment as follows: we

conclude that there is no robust evidence that aid affects growth.

And again, common sense should leave us an surprise. There is obviously a

substantial risk that sending money to the political authorities in

failing countries will merely reinforce failure. Instead of

allowing impetus to build for beneficial change, corrupt regimes

which cannot be entrusted to enforce property rights, and which wage wars

as a first resort rather than a last resort, are permitted to continue on

their destructive course. Massively undermining incentives for both

direct investment from abroad, and entrepreneurship among the domestic

population. Such countries continue to be run on destructive tribal

lines, often, and social traditions which view it to be legitimate to

plunder state funds for private gain go unchallenged. It is time to

consign the idea that pouring ever greater sums into the foreign aid

budget is a signal of our virtue, to the erupts celebrity driven politics

that had hopefully ended with the downfall of David Cameron. From my

vantage point, Britain then seemed to be in the grip under Blair and

Cameron of a generation of gap year politicians who were more engaged in

the fortunes of places they had visited between school and

university than in living standards in working class communities in

their own country. And the greatest joy of all for such politicians

seemed to be when they were name checked approvingly by rock stars or

film stars, and told how virtuous they were for being so generous with

other people's money. We can no longer afford to contract out our

aid policies to the likes of Bono and Bob Geldof. The amount we spend

is not a trifling sum. It is getting on the 2% of public and income ?1 in

every ?50 that the government spends. At about ?14 billion total

aid spending, it is more than the Home Office spends on policing,

border control and anti-terrorist is combined. We are borrowing money in

the name of British taxpayers and sending it to countries with their

own space programmes and countries that have failed to create proper

systems for collecting taxation from their own citizens. In India, for

example, only 1% of the population pays income tax, despite that

country now having an enormous prosperous middle class. What an

insult to British taxpayers whose hard earned money is sent to a

nation with more millionaires than we have. And at a time when the NHS

is struggling to cope, adult social care is on the brink of collapse,

and food banks have spreads of almost every town in Britain.

Where there's almost no evidence to suggest aid spending boost economic

growth in developing countries, there is plenty to show that

improving their trade access to developed countries certainly does.

In this context, Ukip will be arguing for a transition away from

aid and towards trade, as life outside the EU allows us to open up

our enormous consumer market to goods from a wider range of nations.

And instead of making 0.7% of gross national income the benchmark for

the aid budget, we will be calling for that number to be cut to 0.2%.

That incidentally, is the level of the United States of America's aid

programme during the Barack Obama years. This will represent a massive

financial saving of ?10 billion a year and rising, but still leave the

UK spending at least ?4 billion a year on foreign aid, enough to

deliver in the areas that do make a difference. Clean water programmes,

childhood inoculations and emergency famine and disaster relief, but not

enough to finance open-ended bilateral programmes, that pour into

corrupt regimes overseas as at present.

At the moment some ?4.5 billion a year of our aid spending is actually

distributed via international organisations, such as International

rescue, the group that pays David Miliband a salary of ?425,000 a

year. Even the Department for International Development admits

spending distributed by such bodies is difficult to effectively track.

It is simply not a sensible way to spend taxpayers money.

A little later in the campaign we will set out how we propose to

distribute the savings we identify in public spending, the savings we

identify an item is not just foreign aid but the HS2 vanity project, the

relative overspending Scotland caused by the Barnett formula and

the ending of financial contributions into the EU budget.

But the message today is clear- the foreign aid bonanza has got to stop

and Ukip is the only party that will be making the case for that in this

election. Thank you. Questions? You mentioned earlier about part

subscription and par advertising for the BBC. How much do you think

people should pay for programmes like EastEnders and strictly and

what would you miss if the BBC went out of business?

I don't think there is any prospect of the BBC going out of business at

all. What I believe would happen is that there would be a core

subscription level at about the current level of the licence fee,

with perhaps an extra premium level for certain high demand programmes.

But as I say, the BBC has many, many talented administrators. Some might

say too many. We are proposing a three-year transmission to allow, if

our scheme came to pass, to allow the Government and the BBC to work

out a plan for a stable transition away from the licence fee. Thank

you. Yes? ITV News. Two questions. Michel Barnier, the question of the

Brexit Bill, is it... If the UK want a decent trade deal, how can I

refuse to pay anything? Secondly, now we're having Brexit, and Avenue

lost... INAUDIBLE The first question.

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of who has leverage

in this situation. We buy from other EU countries in ballpark numbers

about ?300 billion worth of stuff every year and we sell to them a

little over 200 billion. So if we were moved to World Trade

Organisation rules, for instance, we would be talking about, from our

point of view, 4% tariffs applying to the products of about 12% of our

economy. If you think that the actual exchange rate between the

pound on the euro has changed by much greater amount than that

anyway, that would barely be noticeable. Sometimes I think that

the Brexit hysteria is a bit like the millennium bug for posh people.

In return, the Treasury would make about ?12 billion a year in tariff

revenue on EU imports. That would be more than enough to compensate

consumers for any price rises on imported goods, buy for instance

cutting the rate of VAT, which we would then be at liberty to do. I

suggest also we would see a substitution effect towards home

products, which we would mildly expanded the British market. I think

if the crunch really came, you would see a further Patrick erotic --

patriotic effect where people will buy British produce. Theresa May

said she would rather walk away then sign a bad deal but I don't think

anyone in Brussels believes that. The cold hard facts are on Britain's

side. So yes, I think we will do absolutely fine and the Government

must start believing we hold the cards and mustn't be bluffing

because the British people weren't bluffing on the 23rd of June. The

other thing about Ukip you say, losing its raison d'etre for to risk

a continental phrase. It will certainly be a great moment for Ukip

if and when Britain has left the European Union on decent terms,

securing a full and proper Brexit. I think it will make Ukip the most

influential political party of the 21st century of that is achieved.

But I think we have already shown in this campaign that there are other

priorities which Ukip can argue for. The nature of the foreign aid Bill

being one of those, the ideas on our integration agenda is another. The

final point to you, I don't want to ramble too long, it is I think it is

a challenge to all the smaller parties that we had what we thought

was a fixed term electoral cycle, and that everyone was preparing for

2020. It's almost like an athlete preparing for the 2020 Olympic spend

to be rung up and told that the actual Olympics is in seven weeks'

time. It is certainly true parties need to accelerate thinking and

producing venue agenda. But that is certainly what we are doing. It is

not going to be in our 2020 edition but at 2017 edition. I think you

will find over the next few weeks we are the party producing fresh ideas

all the way through the campaign. Thanks. Harry?

One of the major complaints from critics is arbitrary figures, 0.7,

0.2%... INAUDIBLE Wire Ukip brings an reduce it to

0.2% when we know... Scrap it. Is it because you want to make out your

not as bad as the Lib Dems make out? INAUDIBLE

. We won't allow our thinking to be influenced by the Liberal Democrats,

that is special. 0.2%, I mentioned in my speech, is about what the

United States of America spend the Barack Obama years. It's enough, we

think, to finance a good commitment on those items people do support.

Like childhood inoculation, the emergency relief funding that helps

people in their hour of their most acute need. It's also, as it

happens, given the current state of play economies, more than Italy and

Spain Spain spend together on foreign aid. I think it would help

to have a new benchmark to come down to, a more reasonable sum. I don't

think if we reached 0.2% of gross national income you would find the

absurd spectacle of people running round the International office of

development trying to work out new ways of spending money that they

found they still have in the bottom of the draw. Yes? On the 0% Brexit

divorce Bill, is that a red line for you? If there was a trade deal that

had some merit, would you accept a smaller deal from the EU or would it

have to be zero? We set out a few weeks ago six key

tests of Brexit, as far as Ukip was concerned. One of them was the money

test. In there we made clear we don't see the need for a financial

donation from Britain to the EU as a divorce Bill. We also think Britain

should get back some of the resources we have invested in the

European investment bank, I think about ?9 billion. But we will judge

the final parting of the ways, we will judge it in the rounds. I don't

expect we will be giving, say if we give ten points per test, I don't

expect Theresa May will be getting 60 out of 60 on the Ukip gauge but

we will give you an idea of whether we think, in reasonable layman 's

terms, this is a Brexit that holds true to the vote of the British

people from June 23 last year. So you would accept some other level of

payment? Well, we aren't the Government. I

don't think there will be much dispute in the room, where unlikely

to be the Government on the 9th of June. We have set out our benchmark

for what we think the Government should be trying to achieve. It's

difficult to do a commentary on that until we see what they have

achieved. Is that a yes or no? Would you accept something other than zero

if it's a good deal? I don't know what you mean by wood Ukip accent?

In terms of getting rid of the Greenlee of the -- green levy, do

you think there should be some other mitigating levels put in place?

I think there are varying views across our party about the actual

science behind climate change. As I speak, personally, I think it's fair

to say the majority of scientists are still saying that man-made

emissions is the biggest factor in climate change. I am not a

scientist, so I am not going to second-guess them or say they are

wrong. What I am focusing on is the proportionality of our responses.

You take a country that is responsible for less than 2% of

global emissions, it's really loading on very own arrests costs on

to consumers and families which have had stagnant living standards for

many years. That's something I don't think the environmental lobby takes

enough weight, doesn't give enough weight to. Also I think there's a

very big danger that if we increase our levees and the cost of energy to

our heavy industry, you lose a lot of skill to industrial jobs, which

causes great damage to the social fabric, particular in old

working-class communities. The danger is those jobs are exported to

countries with lower environmental standards and you get a perverse

outcome where the greenhouse emissions goes up. We are a common

sense party, that doesn't strike me as common sense at all. You referred

in your speech to opening up our enormous consumer markets. Can you

confirm opening up our consumer markets would mean less protection

for British farmers and other British institutes? We would have to

look at these issues, but I think in general, particularly the countries

in Africa, it certainly true that the best thing we could do for them

is to treat them as grown-up countries and grown-up economies and

seek to lower the remaining tariffs on liberalised trade over the long

term. Of course, we would have to pay attention to short-term impact

on our own employment and industries. INAUDIBLE

I haven't particularly looked at the steel-making capacity of the country

is in receipt of foreign aid, so I won't try and laugh it.

-- bluff it. Do you accept some kind of EU trade deal has the potential

to be better than the WTO terms, and if so, how is that consistent with

ruling out any price that the Government might be able to

negotiate? I think there is a conceivable deal

that would be a bit better than WTO, which is the one I think a few weeks

ago David Davis publicly spoke of and then hasn't spoken of again.

That is the desire to get precisely the same degree of access to the

single market we have at the moment, without the obligations of freedom

of movement. That would be the very best thing achievable, but what my

argument here is is Britain has absolutely nothing to fear from the

switch to WTO terms. In fact, those terms would be much more problematic

to the EU economies, particularly the EU Eurozone economies, which are

always teetering on the brink of recession or worse, and for whom

they would in effect be cutting up wrath against their top export

market, or certainly in some other language that spin around in recent

days. So there is potentially an even better deal, but I'm warning

against this hysteria that seems to be swirling around parts of my

friends, the BBC and the Financial Times, that there is some kind of

economic meltdown approaching. There just isn't.

This week we had the extraordinary leap from Theresa May's dinner with

Jean-Claude Juncker, in which she allegedly said... How have you found

dealing with him and what advice do you have for the Prime Minister in

her wranglings with Jean-Claude Juncker?

Did you ask how we found dealing with Mr Juncker? Yes. My dealings

with Mr Juncker as a bog-standard MEP have been limited, but I have

witnessed a few of his speeches in European Parliament and the general

rule seems to be, at the day they take place, the more interesting

speeches are. One key dynamic here that we have

got is that the institutions and people at the core of the

institutions of the EU, whether that's the commission or the

European Parliament, I do think places a premium on the idea of

let's punish the country that is leaving to scare the reluctant

members that remain behind. More important will be Theresa May and

the government getting around the individual nation states and their

governments. For instance, in Germany, the most powerful economic

lobby by far is the car industry, and that's true. There are various

powerful lobbies within the nation states that I think will shake a bit

of common sense into our European partners. I think in the end, it

will be the nation states and national parliaments that will prove

a more amenable shadow negotiating partner than the likes of Mr

Juncker. On the current level of the licence

fee, how will it save householders money? Secondly, you are going to

give out a public service broadcasting controlled by the DC

MS, argue in danger of creating a North Korean style? No. The idea

would be a relatively small sum of money, compared to the tens of

millions which anyone would apply in creating a public service

broadcaster. And how will it save people money? The point is not

particularly saving money, the point is it will no longer be compulsory.

The individual consumers will decide if they want to spend 140 is a or

thereabouts a year on the BBC, -- ?147.

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