Nigel Farage under fire over £85BN cost of Reform spending splurge as Keir Starmer brands it a Liz Truss-style 'fantasy' and even allies say his sums 'don't add up'
Sir Keir Starmer will use a speech this morning to deride a 'fantasy' package of measures that will lead to a Liz Truss-style market meltdown.
Mr Farage yesterday unveiled a string of policies in a major speech, including scrapping the two-child benefit cap, fully reinstating winter fuel payments and raising the tax-free income allowance to £20,000.
He also pledged a transferable marriage tax allowance if his party wins the next election, aimed at incentivising marriage and encouraging people to have more children by making it more affordable.
It would exempt one spouse from paying any tax on the first £25,000 of their income, as revealed by the Mail.
But experts said it could cost as much £85billion, a figure that dwarfs the £45billion of unfunded tax cuts announced by former Tory Prime Minister Liz Truss in her disastrous 2022 mini-Budget.
And even Reform supporters raised eyebrows as the cost of the package announced by Mr Farage, who is currently in Las Vegas speaking at a bitcoin conference.
Commentator Tim Montgomerie, founder of the Con Home political website, said: 'The sums don't add up.'
Mr Farage yesterday unveiled a string of policies in a major speech, including scrapping the two-child benefit cap, fully reinstating winter fuel payments and raising the tax-free income allowance to £20,000.
On a visit to meet workers at a manufacturing business in the North West, Sir Keir is expected to brand Mr Farage's policies a 'mad experiment'.
He will say: 'In opposition we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick the bill. We were right.
'And we were elected to fix that mess.
'Now in Government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy – this time from Nigel Farage.
'Farage is making the exact same bet Liz Truss did.
'That you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it.
'And just like Truss, he is using your family finances, your mortgage, your bills as a gambling chip on his mad experiment.
'The result will be the same.'
Mr Farage insisted the pledges were 'credible' and could be paid for by scrapping the Net Zero agenda, which he claimed was costing £45billion a year.
Mr Farage praised Liz Truss's mini-Budget in 2022 - which triggered a market meltdown.
He said an extra £4billion annually could be saved from ditching accommodation for asylum seekers by deporting them and £7billion by ending the public sector's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) drive.
A further £65billion could be saved over five years by cutting quango bureaucracy by 5 per cent, he added, giving an average saving of £69billion annually overall.
But experts said raising the basic rate of income tax threshold to £20,000 could alone cost up to £80billion.
At present, workers pay the 20 per cent rate of income tax on everything between £12,570 and £50,270. Lifting the two-child benefit cap would cost an extra £3.5billion and reinstating the winter fuel allowance £1.5billion.
The eagerly anticipated speech was the most policy-heavy since Reform won four million votes and five seats last July.
Asked if he had a 'magic money tree', Mr Farage admitted his sums were 'slightly optimistic' but added: 'We can't afford Net Zero, it's destroying the country; we can't afford DEI, it's actually preventing many talented people from succeeding; and we certainly can't afford young undocumented males crossing the English Channel and living in five-star hotels.
'You can argue about numbers adding up. You can probably argue that at no point in the history of any form of government has anybody ever thought the numbers added up.'
The Conservatives last night branded the package 'fantasy' economics and 'Corbynism in a different colour' because of the 'billions in unfunded commitments'.
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