Reform UK is “on the side of the worker”, Nigel Farage claimed as he launched the party’s local election campaign amid calls to “make Britain great again”.
Mr Farage said he wanted to create a British form of Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, a programme aimed at cutting costs in the American federal government led by Elon Musk.
Public sector spending has “grown out of all proportion” and must be cut, he said, while his deputy Richard Tice echoed the words of Donald Trump when he asked the audience if they wanted to “make Britain great again”.
The party also unveiled that a long-time Farage ally, Arron Banks, would be its candidate for the West of England mayoral election, during a launch event for the May 1 local elections at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena.
“We will cut taxes. Nobody that earns less than £20,000 a year should pay any income tax whatsoever,” Mr Farage told the rally, after riding out on to the stage on a JCB.
He added: “We are on the side of the worker, we’re on the side of working people, we want to incentivise those on benefits to get off benefits and go back to work.”
The Reform leader also criticised changes to the non-dom tax, which media reports suggested have led Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian steel magnate, to leave the UK.
Mr Farage said: “We cannot help those on lower incomes, we cannot help those that need to access public services, if we get rid of those that pay the most tax because they leave and go to Monaco, Dubai, America, or wherever else it is. We need to be grown-up.”
He added: “Of course, the media will say, how will you pay for this? Well, I tell you what we need: some pretty big cuts in the administrative state in this country which has grown out of all proportion.”
The Reform leader continued: “Frankly folks, what we need in this country to pay for the cuts that people deserve and need, we need a British form of Doge, as Elon Musk has got in America. Let’s have a British Doge.”
Mr Tice had earlier suggested that a “sort of county-by-county equivalent of a Doge” needed to be rolled out to cut council spending.
The Reform deputy leader also echoed US president Mr Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
“Do you want to make Britain great again?” he called out as he finished his speech, adding: “Do you want to make our brilliant strong leader, Nigel Farage, the next elected prime minister of the United Kingdom?”
Some of the party membership could be seen wearing caps bearing the slogan as they entered the event.
Businessman and Brexit-backer Mr Banks, who was revealed as the candidate for the West of England mayoralty, urged the public to “Vote Banksy for Bristol”.
Mr Banks founded the Leave EU campaign alongside Mr Tice during the Brexit referendum, and was previously one of the largest donors to Ukip, formerly led by Mr Farage.
Reform claimed the Birmingham event on Friday evening was “the biggest-ever launch rally in modern British political history”, with 10,000 tickets said to have been sold.
A series of colourful sets depicting “broken Britain” provided a backdrop to speeches from senior party figures, including a mock bus stop bearing the slogan “Your council is broken. Reform will fix it”.
Also inside the Utilita Arena were overfilled rubbish bins including “Easter eggs” such as a ripped-up TV licence with the name “Lee Anderson” and a mock Rachel Reeves CV.
There were also posters depicting Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson as clowns, a blue Reform UK bus and a mock town including a betting shop “Labourbrokes” and a barber shop named “Keir’z Kutz” with the slogan “Cutting everything but tax”.
Mr Farage had earlier come under fire from Labour for his position on how the NHS is funded.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he denied wanting to make people pay to visit the doctor, but said Britain should “re-examine” how it funds the NHS.
Ahead of the local elections and a crucial by-election test in Runcorn and Helsby, Labour has sought to go on the offensive against Mr Farage over his stance on NHS funding.
In a series of attack ads launched on Friday, the party has pointed to previous comments by the Reform leader advocating for a change, including one from 2012 in which he said: “I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.”
