UKIP's big U-turn on immigration & other key manifesto policies

UKIP’s immigration policy is all over the place.

On 4 March, UKIP leader Nigel Farage scrapped a proposed net migration cap of 50,000.

He told BBC Radio 4’s programme: “I’m not putting caps or targets … you need to have more flexibility than that.

“The point is this: we currently have no control over the numbers, we are incapable of debating anything now in politics without caps and targets and I think the British public are bored with it.”

But today, at UKIP’s manifesto launch, the party’s policy chief Suzanne Evans is set to announce plans of the proposed caps being reinstated.

She said: “It [the cap] talks about a target, a limit of 50,000 for skilled workers coming across from around the world. And this is the one thing about our immigration policy that I’m particularly proud of and that we really need to shout from the rooftops, I think: it is the only immigration policy that is fair, equitable and doesn’t discriminate.”

Here are the other key policies UKIP is set to announce today:

Spend more than 2% of GDP on defence by 2020
£12bn extra funding for the NHS over five years
Referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union
Control immigration
Powers for voters to recall MPs
Extra £3bn a year for the NHS
No tax on the minimum wage
Cutting foreign aid by £9bn
Removing stamp duty on the first £250,000 for new homes built on brownfield sites
A cut in business rates for small businesses