Farage scales back Reform's tax-cut pledge to focus on deregulation

Nigel Farage used a speech in the City of London on Monday to pitch Reform UK as the most pro-business government in modern times while formally stepping away from his party’s previous pledge of 90 billion pounds in immediate tax cuts. Speaking at Banking Hall, Farage said the party would pursue sweeping deregulation and a smaller state but insisted large tax reductions were not realistic given Britain’s public finances.

Farage accused successive governments of failing to exploit the opportunities of Brexit and of tightening regulation to the detriment of British businesses. "Brexit has been squandered," he said, adding that "regulations and the way regulators behave with British business is now worse than it was at the time of the Brexit referendum vote." He warned that markets were becoming nervous about rising government borrowing and predicted that, absent action, market pressure could force austerity measures before the next election.

On tax and spending, Farage said Reform would adopt a more cautious timetable. "We want to cut taxes, of course we do, but we understand substantial tax cuts given the dire state of debt and our finances are not realistic at this current...