Labour says Farage would revive austerity as he prepares to set out economic vision in speech – UK politics live

Reform UK leader expected to promise deregulation and spending cuts as Labour and Conservatives attack policiesGood morning. Even though Reform UK has had a clear lead over all other parties in opinion polls for much of the year, it has multiple vulnerabilities. One of them is that immigration is the only potential winning issue it has got, because on all almost other subjects its policy offer is flimsy and its credibility is minimal. And nowhere is this more obvious than on the economy, where the party has already had to admit that the £90bn tax cuts it was proposing in its manifesto last year are now being ditched because they are unacheiveable.Today Nigel Farage is trying to address this problem with a speech where, as he puts it, he will “set out our economic vision for a future Reform government”. As Kiran Stacey reports in his preview, Farage will commit the party to wholesale deregulation.Reform will get public spending under control, so that the nation’s borrowing costs come down. Then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth. We must get the economy growing.Nigel Farage says he is offering something new – but for all his talk, his plan would take us back to austerity.We’ve seen from the councils Reform run that they’ve failed to deliver the savings they already promised and are cutting services and raising taxes as a result. They’ve said themselves that those councils are a shop window for what a Reform government would do nationally – we know that this is more empty promises and no real plan. Continue reading...