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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Nigel Farage speaks at Ukip's spring conference in Margate: Politics Live blog

Nigel Farage delivers a speech at the UKIP spring conference.
Nigel Farage delivers a speech at the UKIP spring conference. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Afternoon summary

  • Nigel Farage has told Ukip that he intends to remain as party leader for the foreseeable future and the party should use the election as a springboard for even greater success in the election after the one in May. Speaking on a day which saw new polling illustrate how negative perceptions of the party are getting worse, Farage said last night’s poll showing him well ahead in Thanet South demonstrated how effective campaigning could make a difference. He said that, as well as winning in some seats in May, he hoped Ukip would come second in “hundreds” more so that it would establish itself as the real opposition to the party in power. It would be the real opposition to Labour in the north, he said. And he suggested he had no plans to step down as leader anytime soon.

What matters is that we succeed on May 7 and that we get a good number of Ukip MPs over the line and that in hundreds of constituencies in this country we have the opportunity to build ourselves from second position in those seats as the real oppostion.

And I certainly think that in the north of England this election will see Ukip emerge as the opposition to the Labour party virtually anywhere from Birmingham to Hadrian’s Wall.

I can tell you I am optimistic, I am upbeat, I am bullish, we are going to exceed all expectations, we are going to win lots of seats in this general election and I hope very much to be leading this party, not just into this general election, but into all the elections to come. In years to come we have elections in Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland and London and we are genuinely now the only truly national party in British politics.

  • He said the recovery was based on “debt financing” and that Ukip would be the only party talking honestly about this at the election.

They [the coalition] have doubled the national debt and I think we’re the only party that will talk honestly about that in this general election.

  • He criticised the Conservatives and Labour for engaging in US-style negative campaigning.

What you have seen since January 2 is the beginning, not just of the longest election campaign in history, but the most negative election campaign in history.

I’m not a supporter of Ed Miliband in any way at all, but it seems to me that the personal attacks that have been lumped on him, and in turn back on Cameron, and of course everybody attacking me - but then I’m used to that - it seems to me that this is not the kind of politics that this country wants or needs. What the people want are some politics of hope, some politics of inspiration.

  • He claimed that his opponents were spreading unfounded and malicious rumours about him being ill.
  • He said he had kept a low profile in recent weeks because he had been campaining hard in Thanet South, where a poll now shows him well ahead. Ukip hoped not just to win the seat, but to take control of the council, he said.
  • Patrick O’Flynn, Ukip’s economic spokesman, said that Ukip was having so much influence on government policy it was effectively “in power”.

Norman Lamont once said the Tories in office gave the impression of being in office but not in power. Well, under David Cameron’s premiership sometimes it feels like Ukip is in power but not in office.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Yeo says in Labour people are discouraged from talking about an EU referendum.

At times it was “Orwellian”, she says. Investigations took place, but people were not allowed to talk to the investigators.

She says Labour has too many politicians with no experience of real life, or what it’s like to get up early to do a job that you had.

The disdain that some MPs hold the voters in makes my stomach churn.

She quotes what Labour’s Austin Mitchell said about people in Great Grimsby voting Labour, even if the candidate were a paedophile. That is insulting about people who pay his £67,000-a-year salary, she says.

She says people in the Conservative party probably have the same views.

It is refreshing to be in a party where attitudes are different, she says. She says she was glad when Nigel Farage said he had to change his views on the NHS because the party would not support them.

During the campaign, she will go anywhere for Ukip to talk to Labour voters, she says.

And that’s it.

I’ll post a summary soon.

Yeo says she is not pro-immigration. But she is pro controlled immigration. We have not got the infrastructure to support current levels of immigration.

She says, when it comes to policy, she is split: half right, half left.

On welfare, she is so far right she makes Iain Duncan Smith look cuddly, she says.

But, on rail, she is in favour of nationalisation. She says she is not sure if people will agree. But the audience applauds.

She also says she believes in social housing. If people want to live in social housing, they should be allowed to, she says.

Red and blue - if you mix them, you get purple, she says.

Harriet Yeo, the defector from Labour, speaks

Farage introduces Harriet Yeo, the former Labour national executive committee chair who defected to Ukip recently.

Yeo says she has been called a lot of names since she defected.

It is good to belong to a party that listens to people, she says. She has not experienced that for a long time.

Updated

The audience is giving Farage a standing ovation and chanting “Ukip, Ukip”.

Farage says people should not spend too much time talking about what might happen after polling day.

But, if they are in second place in many seats, they will be well placed to establish themselves as the opposition.

He says he wants to see them as the opposition to Labour from Birmingham to Hadrian’s Wall after the election.

He is bullish about Ukip’s prospects, he says.

He says he expects to be leader for a long time to come.

And he expects Ukip to score a famous victory.

Updated

Farage says the next 68 days will be difficult.

They do not have much support form the media. But they are very grateful for the support they get from the Express group, he says.

Farage says the Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless defections were remarkable. They did not just cross the floor. They took the honourable step, and fought byelections, because they believed the people should decide.

Farage says it was a mistake for the UK to tie itself so closely to Europe. It should re-embrace the rest of the world, starting with the Commonwealth.

Updated

Farage says the recovery been based on debt financing.

When the coalition came to power the national debt was £850bn. But it has doubled, and it is now £1.5tr.

Farage says Ukip must be the party that is honest with voters at the election about this.

It would scrap HS2, he says. And it would spend no more money on wind energy subsidies.

Farage says the government has run down Britain’s defences.

It beggars belief that Cameron says his proudest achievement is ensuring we spend more on aid proportionately than any other country in the world.

Let’s spend some of that money on defence, Farage says.

Farage says Cameron said we should judge him on his immigration record.

He failed to meet his immigration target.

But Ukip must strike a positive note, he says.

Only by leaving the EU and taking control of our borders can we give people want they want: an Australian-style points system that lets us decide who comes to the UK.

Farage asks those in the audience who are standing as candidates in the parliamentary or local elections to stand up. About 80% of people in the hall stand up.

Farage tells them people will criticise them.

But they must stay positive, he says.

Farage says he has just come back from the US. There is much to admire in the US, but there is one trend he does not like, he says; negative campaigning.

Both the Tories and Labour have hired American consultants, he says. And the Tories are launching very personal attack on Ed Miliband. Farage says he does not admire Miliband, but he does not approve of those attacks.

Ukip will not use those tactics, he says.

Farage says people have worried where he has been in recent weeks, because he has kept a low profile.

The other leaders have not done that; but people are getting bored of them.

Opponents have spread malicious and unpleasant rumours about his health.

But rumours of his demise have been exaggerated.

Farage says he has been here in Thant.

Ukip is fighting all 56 seats on Thanet council, and wants to take control of the council.

They have been holding lots of meetings, and knocking on lots of doors.

He mentions the Survation poll, and shows it on the screen above the stage.

Yesterday Tim Montgomerie in the Times said Farage would lose badly. But, Farage tells Montgomerie, he is on his way to winning.

Here’s what Montgomerie wrote in the article Farage is talking about.

So long as Mr Farage is Ukip’s leader this misfit coalition will probably be kept together. But how long will he stay leader? The ElectionForecast.co.uk website, run by three academics, suggests that the Tories have a 95 per cent chance of stopping Mr Farage from winning Thanet South. While this seems high I should point out that it’s not an anti-Ukip website. It also attaches a 93 per cent probability to Douglas Carswell retaining his Clacton seat.

If Ukip wins between six and a dozen seats and Mr Farage loses in Thanet, it will be difficult for him to retain his leadership. The centre of gravity of Ukip will have moved to Westminster and away from him.

Nigel Farage's speech

Nigel Farage is on stage now.

Welcome to Thanet, and welcome to Kent - one of the most Eurosceptic counties in the UK.

Experts says Ukip might win four or five seats at the election. But they might win four or five in Kent alone, he says.

O’Flynn says the Times, Ukip’s most implacable opponent in the media, declared Nigel Farage man of the year in 2014.

He welcomes him to the stage.

O’Flynn urges Ukip people going on the media to be civilised in debate, and generous. They should be aware of the damage they could do to candidates in key seats.

Politics is a team game, he says.

But every team needs leadership. And Ukip has the most inspirational leader of all in Nigel Farage.

Farage walked away from a plane crash five years ago. But he did not walk away from politics, even though people did not realise how much damage the crash had done him.

O’Flynn says Farage led the party to its byelection successes. And they would have won Eastleigh if it had not been for “those vote-splitting Conservatives”.

Farage took Nick Clegg apart in the debates during the European elections. And he oversaw the defection of Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless.

O’Flynn said peak Ukip was supposed to happen last May. But support for Ukip did not go down.

He says Labour has taken its support for granted. He looks forward to Ukip taking Heywood and Middleton from Labour.

Labour despise the values of the working class, he says, as Emily Thornberry’s tweet during the Rochester byelection showed.

And Tristram Hunt sneers at nuns. What will working class Catholics make of that?

He says Andy Burnham can concentrated on flattening his vowels, while Ukip focuses on flattening Labour.

Updated

O’Flynn says Labour and the Tories said they would raise the income tax threshold to £12,500.

But, allowing for inflation, they would have to take it to at least £13,000 to take people on the minimum wage out of income tax. That is something Ukip would do, he says.

He says Ukip would raise the threshold for the 40p higher rate of tax. Less than a week later, Cameron announced something similar.

O’Flynn says, at Ukip’s autumn conference, he proposed a minimum tax for companies that practice aggressive tax avoidance. In his autumn statement, Osborne announced something similar.

O’Flynn said people used to say the Tories under John Major were in office but not in power. Now it feels like Ukip is in power but not in office.

O’Flynn says Ukip will be the voice of fiscal responsibility in the next parliament.

They would cut the aid budget by £9bn, he says.

(Earlier Suzanne Evans said this could raise up to £11bn.)

O’Flynn says Cameron once said his priorities could be summed up in three letters: NHS. It turned out he meant: IOU.

Patrick O'Flynn's economy speech

Patrick O’Flynn, the economics spokesman, says he is going to start with a list of numbers.

27

32

44

41

36

40

100

153

134

113

119

97

91

These figures represent the level of the deficit for the last 13 years, in billions, he says.

Gordon Brown and his advisers said they had abolished boom and bust. Well, that worked out, didn’t he.

And what about George Osborne. He has behaved like a pretty decent darts player. Every time he scores around 100. But it’s £100bn deficit, he says.

When he said “we’re all in it together”, we thought he was talking about paying off the deficit. But in fact he was just talking about his days in the Bullingdon Club with Dave and Boris, he says.

We’re now about to get the two most important speeches of the day, from Patrick O’Flynn, the economics spokesman, and Nigel Farage, the leader.

Nigel Farage arriving at the Ukip conference in Margate - with Channel 4 News' Michael Crick doorstepping him.
Nigel Farage arriving at the Ukip conference in Margate - with Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick doorstepping him. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga /EPA

Mark Hartland is giving a presentation on Sovereign Draw, a Ukip fundraising lottery. It’s very Ukip; the prizes are gold sovereigns (worth around £220), and nothing represents British tradition more than a gold sovereign, he says.

(I don’t think he was announcing the reversal of decimalisation as party policy, but you can never be sure. It may well have been in that 486-page 2010 manifesto.)

Here’s more on the Christian Soldiers in Ukip leaflets. (See 11.58am.) It’s from the Press Association.

A leaflet labelled as produced by “Christian Soldiers in Ukip” was being handed out to members inside the Winter Gardens.

It accused the gay community of a “recruitment drive” in primary schools.

“The state is allowing the sexual grooming of our primary school children for same-sex attraction,” the leaflet said.

Children were being “indoctrinated” to “confuse their gender identity” and “think about and sing songs about same-sex attraction”.

“What the LGBT (lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender community) is achieving, of course, is a recruitment drive,” it went on.

“As such people cannot reproduce their own kind, they must recruit fresh ‘blood’ and this is best done among children in schools - the younger the better.

“The government, through (Michael) Gove and (Nicky) Morgan, has given them carte blanche,” the leaflet said.

A Ukip spokesman said the distributors of the leaflets had been asked to stop.

“They are an affiliated organisation, but they do not represent the party,” he added.

Updated

Nathan Gill's international aid speech

Nathan Gill, the international development spokesman, produced the leaflet I mentioned earlier offering eight reasons why foreign aid should be cut. In his speech, he explained what those eight reasons were.

Nigel Farage has arrived.

Suzanne Evans, Ukip’s deputy chairman, says the party always planned to publish its manifesto after the budget, which is in March.

But that is not what she said in January. (See 11.44am.)

William Dartmouth's international trade speech

William Dartmouth, the international trade spokesman, started his speech with an attack on Channel 4 (because of the Ukip’s first 100 days programme”. Its values were “falsehood, innuendo and smear”, he said.

After that, he was on to international trade, with the help of powerpoint slides.

Nigel Farage is due to arrive soon.

Margot Parker's business speech

Margot Parker, Ukip’s business spokeswoman, has just finished speaking now. She stressed the importance of small businesses, and also said Ukip would like to see every council offer free parking for 30 minutes in town centres.

Here are some of the points she made.

She also said Ukip wanted to do more to promote vocational education.

Lunchtime summary

  • A poll has revealed that Ukip’s reputation has been badly damaged over the last year, with 44% of people now viewing it as racist. According to the ComRes survey for ITV (pdf) published to coincide with Ukip’s spring conference, 44% of people see Ukip as a racist party – up 12 points from April 2014 - while 36% disagree (down 4 points). Some 37% say Ukip is nasty (up 5 points), 47% say it is “not a credible party” (up 11 points) and 48% say it does not have sensible policies (up 10 points). On the plus side, the poll also shows that Ukip is more trusted than the other main parties to control immigration.
  • Ukip speakers at the conference have sought to counter claims that they are intolerant. In an attempt to address the problems highlighted by the ComRes poll, Steven Woolfe, the party’s immigration spokesman, said that Ukip accepted that Britain was an ethnically diverse country.

We [are] no longer a nation of anglo-saxons, but of mixed race people, of Jews and Catholics, of Muslims and Hindus, of those who are non-believes alike ... Our Ukip family is a Britain for all Britons. Unlike the protesters that stand outside our meetings and conference, we see beyond the veil of colour and simply believe in the passionate needs of our country and the passionate belief of our country.

He said he accepted that first, second and third generation immigrants could be patriotic Britons and he introduced two speakers with an immigrant background who made the same point. Woolfe said Ukip was not anti-immigrant. But it was concerned about the pressure on services created by mass immigration, he said. In his speech Mark Reckless, the Ukip MP, also said the party’s opposition to the EU was not founded on nationalism.

We don’t want to leave the European Union because we are nationalists, but because we are democrats. It is not just to control our borders that we want to leave the European Union, but to boost our economy.

  • Ukip has portayed itself as the party of the NHS. In his Reckless said that Ukip would put an extra £3bn into the NHS - more than any other party.

To go beyond our base we will show that Ukip is the party of the NHS. I was born into the NHS. My father was a doctor and my mother was a nurse. Three times the NHS has been a lifeline for our party leader. Ukip is the party of the NHS.

Louis Bours, the health spokeswoman, gave a speech setting out the party’s health policies in considerable detail.

  • Ukip has missed its deadline for publishing its manifesto. The document was supposed to be ready today. (See 11.44am.) But Suzanne Evans, the deputy chair of the party who is in charge of the manifesto, conceded in her speech that it was not ready. But, when it was published, it would contain “authentic, fresh, realistic honest ideas”, she said. It would be a manifesto “that really does set us apart from the old parties”. She mocked the 2010 manifesto, which ran to 486 pages, and said the 2015 one would be much shorter.
  • Evans said Ukip would be able to afford tax cuts because it was committed to policies that would save up to £35bn a year.

Another thing that differentiates us from the rest is that Ukip is the only party that has found the money to spend on making Britain a better place.

She said the party would save £10bn a year by leaving the EU; up to £11bn a year by cutting overseas aid; up to £8bn by reveiwing the Barnett formula; up to £4bn a year by 2020 by scrapping HS2; and £2bn a year by tackling health tourism.

That is a massive sum of money to invest in Britain without adding to the national debt and without raising taxes.

  • Ukip has accused Ed Miliband of drawing up the most damaging piece of legislation ever passed by parliament. In a speech on energy policy, Paul Oakden, the national agent, said the 2008 Climate Change Act was “the most expensive peacetime bill every adopted by Westminster”. Ukip members booed when Oakden showed a picture of Miliband and said he was to blame.

The main responsible for the Act is now a familiar household name, if only for his inability to eat a bacon sandwich, none other than Ed Miliband. In 2008 he was the secretary of state for energy and he steered the bill through the Commons. We are simply unable to think of anybody else in history who has done so much damage to our country in one single act.

Updated

Woolfe says Ukip will take students out of migration figures.

People coming here to study is to be encouraged. At his own wedding there were 22 people from different countries (whom he had met at university, he implies.)

But Ukip would monitor student visitors, to make sure they do go home.

He says Ukip’s immigration policy is an ethical one. It is what Britain needs to succeed, he says.

Steven Woolfe is speaking again now.

He says Gill and Fila show how Ukip is an inclusive party.

As Douglas Carswell said in a speech, Ukip believes in a Britain for all Britons. It looks beyond colour, he says.

But, Woolfe says, Ukip must protect the interests of people. That means tackling immigration.

He says Ukip is concerned about the needs of people trying to get into the UK, and the fact they come from war-torn countries.

But there is a process for people to enter the UK. Migrants should follow that.

And Ukip should never support the people traffickers, whose proceeds support groups like Boko Haram.

He reaffirms Ukip’s commitment to a points-based immigration system. Ukip would only let 50,000 people in a year, he says. After five years, those migrants would have the right to settle.

Edward Fila, Ukip candidate for Stratford upon Avon, is speaking now. He says he was brought up speaking Polish. His father came to Britain after he he escaped from a Russian prisoner of war camp and during the war he flew 34 missions with Lancaster bombers.

Fila says he considers himself British and is proud to be British. Britain is a free, tolerant country, he says.

Updated

Woolfe cites yesterday’s immigration figures and says that David Cameron said people should throw him out if he failed to meet his target of getting net migration below 100,000. He has failed, Woolfe says, and he should quit.

He says he stayed in a hotel last night with a quote from Wellington on the wall. Wellington was born in Dublin, but he fought for Britain and believed in Britain, just as Ukip believes in Britain. Ukip believes that first, second and third generation migrants can also believe in Britain too.

He introduces Harjit Singh Gill, a former Labour mayor of Gloucester who is now a Ukip member. Gill says Ukip is the only party that represents modern Britain. Referring to the figures showing net migration at around 300,000, he says Cameron used to talk about the big society. “Well, this society is definitely getting bigger,” he says.

(He gets the timing just right. It’s the best joke of the day so far.)

Updated

Woolfe says Labour call Northerners stupid. But Northerners like him are not stupid. They know that Labour has not been working for them for a generation, and that is why they are joining Ukip.

Updated

Steven Woolfe's immigration speech

Steven Woolfe, the immigration spokesman, starts by mentioning the Channel 4 fictional programme about Ukip’s first 100 days in power. Actually, if Ukip were in power it would take over Channel 4 and make it Channel Ukip, he jokes.

He also pays special tribute to Michael Crick, the Channel 4 News political correspondent, for what he’s done to promote Ukip. (That’s a joke. A previous Ukip conference was derailed after Crick got Godfrey Bloom to bash him over the head with a rolled-up paper.)

Updated

Steve Crowther, the chairman, says immigration is in the news, and leads the agenda, despite “vicious” attempts to stop people talking about it.

He introduces the immigration spokesman, Steven Woolfe.

Peter Whittle, the culture and communities spokesman, is speaking now.

He says Ukip respect different faiths. They want an integrated society, but to achieve that, you need a proper immigration policy, he says.

We believe in the rule of law, he says. Forced marriage, honour killings and female genital mutilation have no place in society.

Paul Oakden's energy speech

Paul Oakden, Ukip’s national agent, is giving a speech on energy, on behalf of Roger Helmer MEP, the energy spokesman, who can’t be here.

There is a summary of his argument here, on Ukip’s website. Unlike the other main parties, he says, Ukip is opposed to the Climate Change Act. He says it will cost the average household £28,000 over 40 years. It could be the most expensive piece of peacetime legislation ever, he says.

He also describes it as possibly the worst legislation ever.

And who was responsible? Oakden shows a picture of Ed Miliband eating that bacon sandwich. The audience boo.

Oakden says the second guilty man was Chris Huhne - “synonymous with the word guilty”.

And he says Ed Davey, the current energy secretary, is even more obsessed with “climate alarmism” than Huhne.

Wind turbine are driving up energy costs, Oakden says, and we need fewer of them.

Oakden presents two more faces in his “rogues gallery”: Tim Yeo, the Conservative chair of the energy committtee, whom he describes as a “greeny”; and George Osborne; whom Oakden blames for introducing the carbon price floor.

More Ukip memorabilia from the conference hall.

Rowena wrote about the Christian Soldiers of Ukip earlier this month.

I don’t suppose the Christian Soldiers will approve of these.

Paul Nuttall's speech

Paul Nuttall, the Ukip deputy leader, is speaking now on “Rebalancing the union”.

He says Ukip is the only party with elected representatives in all four parts of the UK (ie, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.)

He says Ukip favours proper English votes on English laws (ie, stopping Scottish MPs voting on England-only legislation). The Conservative plans to address this (which would give English MPs a veto on England-only legislation, but still allow Scottish MPs a vote) do not go far enough, he says.

The current arrangements embody inequality of power, he says.

He says Ukip will not let the union die.

This is what Suzanne Evans said in January when she was put in charge of the Ukip manifesto, replacing Tim Acker.

I relish the task of putting together the final details and presenting a sensible, radical and fully costed manifesto at our spring conference in Margate.

Arguably, the main news today so far is the fact that this target has been missed. (See 10.33am.)

Here are some more conference tweets.

BuzzFeed’s Jamie Ross has spotted this.

In response to the Survation poll released last night (see 9.31am), Labrokes have cut the odds on Nigel Farage being elected there. They have sent out this.

In response to positive local polling released as the Ukip spring conference begins the bookies have cut Farage from 4/9 to 1/3, meaning the Conservatives drift to 3/1 in front of Labour at 8/1.

Alex Donohue of Ladbrokes said: “The momentum is definitely with Farage in Thanet South. Political punters are convinced the Ukip leader looks a safe bet to take the seat in May.”

Here are the three Ashcroft polls from the constituency last year, two of which showed the Conservatives ahead and one of which showed Farage ahead.

Turning back to the issue of whether or not the Ukip vote has peaked (see 10.08am), this YouGov post is revealing.

YouGov found recently that the number of people who think Ukip will be an important force in politics for the next 10 years has fallen sharply since October last year.

YouGov poll
YouGov poll Photograph: YouGov

And here’s part of the YouGov explanation.

One explanation is the relatively low profile the party leader Nigel Farage has kept recently as he focuses on his forthcoming campaign in South Thanet. As the party’s head of campaigns said, “the more media comes [to his target seat of South Thanet], the less people he can talk to. He had a camera turn up a few days ago and it prevented him doing any form of campaigning. It’s important that Nigel wins.”

UKIP has lost ground recently in voting intention, with support in slight decline since October of last year, when UKIP reached an all-time high of 19%. Those weeks of averaging 17% or 18% have given way to leads of 14% or 15%. This is still an improvement on last summer, however.

Prof Angus Dalgleish, an oncologist and Ukip’s candidate in Sutton and Cheam, is speaking now.

He says people accuse Ukip of wanting to privatise the NHS. That is completely untrue, he says.

Bours says Ukip is the only party that has ruled out serving in a coalition. That means it is the only party that will fight after the election for the policies it proposed before the election.

We believe in Britain. We believe in the NHS.

Bours gets a round of applause.

Verdict: It was a bit shouty, and it did go on, but after this no one can accuse the NHS of not having any health policies.

Bours says, under Ukip, hospital managers would need a licence to manage.

There have been some shocking management failings, she says. Under this plan, failed managers would not be able to get a new job somewhere else in the NHS.

Bours turns to social care. Some care assistants are only given 15 minutes per visit. That is “an absolute disgrace.

She says people are very generous in their donations to charity. But charity should not be paying for services that the government should fund, she says.

Ukip woud integrate health and social care.

It would experiment with putting GPs in A&E departments, she says.

And care providers would not be allowed to employ people on zero hours contracts.

Bours says the media have closed down more failing care homes than the Care Quality Commission. The CQC could be given greater powers to carry out snap inspections, she says.

She says nursing training should happen on wards, not in lecture theatres.

Ukip would bring back “the state-enrolled nurse”.

(This gets a big round of applause.)

And Ukip would insist on foreign health professionals being able to speak and write English “to a level acceptable to the profession”.

(Another round of applause.)

Louise Bours' speech on health

Louise Bours, the Ukip health spokeswoman, is speaking now.

She says for too long the NHS has been a political football.

Under Ukip, there would be a focus on patient care and patient outcomes.

The NHS must remain free at the point of delivery, she says.

Ukip would spend an extra £3bn a year on the NHS. Eventually this would come from the savings from leaving the EU, but in the short term it would come from other savings, to be spelt out in the manifesto. The money would go into frontline services, she says.

The money would fund 20,000 new nurses, 3,000 new midwives and 8,000 new GPs, she says.

Ukip would focus more on training GPS, and it would encourage those who have left the profession to return.

It would free doctors from unnecessary data collection, she says. This would allow GPs to open at least one evening a week, and one weekend a month.

Ukip would increase funding on mental health services, she says.

And it would tackle dementia, she says. It would spend £130m a year on dementia funding, or £650m over the course of the next parliament - double what the Tories are promising, she says.

And they would insist on foreign visitors having health insurance. The NHS is for Britons, she says. It is the national health service.

This gets a large round of applause.

Only after contributing to tax for five years would foreigners be entitled to free NHS care.

Bours says Ukip would also abolish hospital parking charges.

Updated

Evans says Britain has so much to be proud of - not least the English language, arguably our best export - and is more than capable of running its own affair.

But its seat at international trade talks is vacant.

Ukip are not the little Englanders. They do not favour staying in the EU, jumping at Frau Merkel’s every command. It is Labour and the Conservatives who are the little Englanders, she says.

That’s it. She gets a short, but very enthusiastic, standing ovation.

Evans says Ukip says no to the mansion tax, no to the bedroom tax, no to a tax on the minimum wage and no to inheritance tax.

She says the manifesto will provide a vision for education, welfare, childcare, healthcare and care for the elderly.

It will give farmers and fishermen control of their industries again.

And it will provide “a route map out of the EU and into the world”.

Suzanne Evans' speech on the Ukip manifesto

Suzanne Evans, the Ukip deputy chairman was was recently put in charge of the manifesto, is speaking now.

She starts by saying the manifesto will not advocate uniforms for taxi drivers, repainting rail carriages in traditional colours or enforcing a dress code at the theatre (some of the ideas in the 2010 manifesto).

She fought for these ideas but was over-ruled, she jokes.

The last manifesto ran to 486 pages. This one will be much shorter, she says. It will be ready soon, she says.

Pulling out of the EU will save £10bn, she says.

Cutting aid spending to US levels will save another £11bn, she says.

Tacking health tourism will save £2bn a year, she says.

Reviewing the Barnett formula will save £3bn to £8bn annually.

Scrapping HS2 - (this gets a huge cheer) - will also save £4bn annually by 2020.

That is a massive amount of money to save, she says. It will enable Ukip to cut taxes, she says.

Updated

Reckless says Ukip is “the party of the NHS”.

He was proud to be a member of Ukip when it launched its health policy in Rochester recently, he says.

His father was a doctor, his mother was a nurse. Three times the NHS has provided a lifeline to Nigel Farage. Ukip is the party of the NHS, he says.

Reckless says Ukip’s immigration policy is about treating people fairly. Net immigration is now 300,000 a year - equivalent to a city the size of Hull.

Ukip will bring immigration down sharply. But it will also change the balance of immigration, by introducing an Australian points-based system.

Reckless says three other Ukip policies have real appeal with voters: on energy, on overseas aid and planning.

Only Ukip would end “market rigging” in energy and restore a proper market, he says.

On aid, he says almost every MP was against him when he spoke out in the Commons against spending 0.7% of national wealth on aid. But he did not mind, because he knew he was speaking for the public, he says.

On planning, Reckless says Labour favour spatial strategies, and the Tories give power to consultants. He says Ukip would put power in the hands of councillors.

Mark Reckless's speech

Mark Reckless, the former Tory who is now the Ukip MP for Rochester, is speaking now.

He recalls his appearance at the Ukip conference in Doncaster (where he was unveiled as a defector). He won’t get as much media attention today, he says.

But, at this election, Ukip for the first time is being treated as a major party.

What major party status will mean is that we won’t have to fight for attention, we won’t have to court attention to be heard ... and we can reach beyond our base.

He says Ukip do not want to leave the EU because they are nationalists; they want to leave the EU because they are democrats.

My colleague Rowena Mason says this is the leaflet let on the seats in the hall.

Back in Margate, Steve Crowther, the Ukip chairman, opens the conference by telling members that the New Statesman says Ukip has peaked. Panto-style, he asks: “Have we peaked?” Of course, they all shout no.

For reference, here is what the polls are showing. Ukip’s current poll ratings are a bit lower than they were before Christmas but they are still well up on where they were four or five years ago.

YouGov poll figures
YouGov poll figures Photograph: YouGov

Crowther was referring to this article in the New Statesman by George Eaton. It starts: “The purple wave is receeding.” But Crowther should have read to the end. Eaton’s argument is that, whoever wins the election, Ukip will probably continue to thrive.

Perhaps the only thing that could reverse Ukip’s advance is the attainment of power, as the Liberal Democrats learned to their cost. Once tainted by compromise, it would soon come to resemble those it assails as political swine. That is not a fate it need contemplate now. The complacent assumption that Ukip’s moment has passed is born of the same arrogance that first led to its rise.

Nigel Farage was in the US yesterday, where he was speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

He’s the picture he tweeted about his speech.

And here’s another perspective.

Farage was speaking late in the day, and many people in the 5,000-seater hall had left by the time he took to the stage. But, as my colleague Dan Roberts reports, Farage did get a good reception from those who were there to hear him.

“We have a fifth column living within our communities, a fifth column that hates us and wants to destroy us and if we are going win this great battle – for our liberty, for our democracy, for our civilisation and our culture – we are going to have to start standing up for our Judeo-Christian values,” begins Farage at a drinks reception that picks up where he left off on Fox News the day before, when he claimed the mosques of Britain had been infiltrated by criminal hate preachers.

South Carolina congressman Jeff Duncan is so smitten with the overall mix of unabashed political incorrectness, he tells Farage: “I’m American Ukip.”

For a rightwing US audience appalled that Barack Obama refuses to declare war on radical Islam and consumed by political anger over his immigration reforms, this is the right message at the right time.

In a similar report, Sky’s Dominc Waghorn says one American writer claimed that Farage had the appeal of James Bond!

But Guido Fawkes has posted some video of the speech under the headline: Farage flops in Washington. (Actually, it was Maryland, not Washington.)

In its report, the Times (paywall) says Farage turned down the invitation to be pictured with Sarah Palin.

According to the BBC’s Robin Brant, Patrick O’Flynn, Ukip’s economics spokesman, will use his speech to the conference to say that the party supports George Osborne’s aim to eliminate the budget deficit by 2018.

While I was queuing to get in, I missed the Nazi dancers. The Press Association explains all.

A Nazi-themed troupe of dancers and a 16-tonne Second World War tank gatecrashed the start of Ukip’s spring party conference.

Performers in hot pants, jackboots and Nazi insignia high-kicked to the Springtime For Hitler tune as delegates arrived.

The dancers, from Mel Brooks’s musical The Producers, caused the scene outside Ukip’s conference venue - the Winter Gardens in Margate, Kent.

The seven-strong troupe of female dancers performed a choreographed routine as Springtime For Hitler blared from a PA system on the tank turret.

It emerged that the cast were in Margate to promote the new touring production of Brooks’s acclaimed musical comedy, which opens in Bromley on March 7.

It was probably more entertaining than James Delingpole.

Spring may not have arrived, but the spring party conference has, and I’m at the Winter Gardens in Margate (where the seaside resort cliche “faded” seems even more appropriate than usual), sitting on a seat in the balcony watch Ukip members get ready for the start of their conference in about 30 minutes time. The stage is empty, but Ukip are showing a loud video featuring James Delingpole aggressively defending fracking. I suppose David Cameron would approve.

The Margate conference hall is just outside the South Thanet constituency where Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, is standing as a candidate on the election. As my colleague Rowena Mason reports, on the eve of the conference a poll came out showing Farage ahead,

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence party, is on course to win his battle to become an MP, according to a poll in South Thanet showing him with an 11% lead.

The poll conducted by Survation over the past week shows Farage on 38.6%, Labour on 27.6%, the Conservatives on 26.6%, the Greens on 3.1% and the Liberal Democrats trailing behind with 2%. It is the first time Farage has drawn ahead in what previous polls have said is a tight three-way contest in the Kent constituency.

Al Murray, the comedian who is standing as the Pub Landlord candidate, has 1.4% of the vote.

I’ll be blogging from the conference all day. Here’s the agenda.

10am: Tim Scott, Ukip’s south east chairman, opens the conference.

10.15am: Mark Reckless MP speaks on “Reaching beyond our base”

10.30am: Suzanne Evans, Ukip’s deputy chairman, on the manifesto.

10.45am: Louise Bours MEP, the health spokeswoman, and Prof Angus Dalgleish, a clincian and Ukip PPC

11.30am: Paul Nuttall, the deputy leader, speaks on “Rebalancing the union”.

11.45am: Paul Oakden, the national agent, speaks on energy.

12pm: Peter Whittle, culture and communities spokesman.

12.15pm: Harjit Singh Gill, the former mayor of Gloucester, and Steven Woolfe MEP, the migration spokesman, speak on migration.

2pm: Stuart Agnew MEP, agriculture spokesman

2.15pm: Ray Finch MEP, fisheries spokesman

2.45pm: Margot Parker MEP, business spokesman

3pm: William Dartmouth MEP, international trade spokesman

3.15pm: Nathan Gill MEP, international development spokesman
3.45pm: Mark Harland presents Sovereign Draw, a fundraising project

4pm: Patrick O’Flynn MEP, economics spokesman

4.20pm: Nigel Farage speaks.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

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