Political correspondent Kiran Stacey has written this report on Nigel Farage’s speech today
Nigel Farage has refused to commit to keeping the pensions triple lock in place if he wins the next election, even as he unveiled a series of expensive tax cuts without fully explaining how his party would pay for them.
The Reform UK leader said on Tuesday that if he becomes prime minister he might not keep the policy – which guarantees that the state pension rises by at least inflation, earnings or 2.5% a year, whichever is the highest.
Instead his the hard-right party is promising to overturn the two-child benefit cap and cuts to winter fuel allowance as it seeks to take advantage of unhappiness at the Labour government among voters.
Farage said: “The triple lock for pensioners is not something we have addressed as yet. We will, between now and the next election. We are, as you can see, building out our policy platform.”
His answer came after a half-hour speech in central London during which he outlined a series of policy promises designed to win leftwing voters disenfranchised by the Labour government’s benefit cuts. They included a pledge to reverse the two-child benefit cap and to undo Labour’s cuts to the winter fuel allowance.
You can read more of Kiran Stacey’s report here: Nigel Farage refuses to commit to keeping pensions triple lock if he wins next election
Walthamstow’s Labour MP Stella Creasy has posted to social media about Nigel Farage’s earlier comments on legal abortion access in the UK, saying “It’s inevitable a man who wants to repeat the Trump playbook would begin attacking abortion access at some point – that’s why we have to protect it for the 250,000 who have one every year by making it a human right.”
Creasy wrote for the Guardian a fortnight ago about the battle to decriminalise abortion and future-proof the law against anti-abortion extremists.
