Nigel Farage: 'Ukip kick-started revolution which swept Donald Trump to victory'

Tub-thumping speech: Nigel Farage
Getty Images
Kate Proctor17 February 2017
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Ukip’s Nigel Farage has told the party it should not aim to be “nice” and ignore calls to become more mainstream with softer policies.

In what the party billed as a “tub-thumping speech” at their spring conference in Bolton, Mr Farage threw his full weight behind their embattled leader Paul Nuttall.

Mr Farage told party members they should not lean towards the middle ground in a bid to capture Labour votes in the up-coming Stoke by-election where Mr Nuttall is standing as a candidate.

He said: “It’s nice to be popular, it’s good to get invited to all the right social set parties in London and I guess it is easier in life to be thought of as being nice, rather than one of those unpleasant populists but this attitude is not UKIP.

“Just look at what Trump did in the Mid-West of America to pick up Democrat votes and none voters. He didn’t do it by tacking to the left.”

Speaking of the tumultuous political events of last year, he added: "It was a year of political revolution, and the most remarkable thing about it is it was all started by Ukip."

There had been speculation Mr Farage was distancing himself from the Bootle-born party leader after he admitted claims on his website that close personal friends of his had died in the Hillsborough disaster were untrue.

However Mr Farage cancelled a trip to America to address the conference, in what will be his final rallying cry before voters go to the polls on February 23.

His words of support came as Mr Nuttall delivered his first conference speech as leader and vowed to tackle “heating and eating” for the country’s poorest families by slashing VAT.

Chip-shops and takeaways would see their five per cent reduced VAT rate scrapped entirely, he told the conference. The charge would also be removed from fuel bills.

A UKIP source said: “He is concentrating on the things that post-Brexit Britain is free to do. One of the things we cannot do at present, but which we will be able to do post-leaving, is a zero-rate VAT. The EU rules that the minimum VAT has to be 5 percent, so we are going to campaign for “heating and eating”.

“We are talking about fish and chips, the whole take-away business - it’s an “un-pasty tax” and will disproportionally benefit people on lower wages.”

A You Gov poll this week showed more voters see UKIP as the party of blue-collar workers than Labour.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in