UKIP manifesto pledges to leave EU
Updated on 13 April 2010
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) unveils its manifesto with a call for Britain to leave the European Union, as it seeks to win its first seat at Westminster.
The central pledge of the UK Independence Party manifesto is, of course, the withdrawal of Britain from the EU. It pledges to save tens of billions of pounds by withdrawing from the EU - which it says would be used to pay the deficit quicker.
Among the party's other policies: a £50bn a year cut in spending, a 31 per cent flat rate of income tax, the abolition of national insurance, a five-year freeze on new immigrants settling in Britain, a ban on wearing the burka in public - and in some private – buildings, and boot camps for young offenders.
The party has also pledged to transfer two million public sector jobs to the private sector.
The party, which is fielding 550 candidates at the election, says it will not stand against "genuinely Eurosceptic" candidates from other parties.
But it is breaking the convention of giving the Commons Speaker a free run, putting up its former leader, Nigel Farage, against John Bercow in Buckingham.
UKIP leader Lord Pearson said withdrawing from the EU was essential, because otherwise "we can't do anything about the two main issues of this election - which are the deplorable and very worrying state of our economy and immigration".
Nigel Farage told the manifesto launch that the election campaign so far had been a "piddling irrelevancy".
"It's becoming increasingly clear the choice the British public are being offered here is not for a change of government, but for a change in management," he said.