Nigel Farage says exactly what everyone is really thinking about Tory manifesto promises

Nigel Farage urged voters not to "believe a single word" of the Tories' General Election manifesto.

The Reform UK leader, who is standing in Clacton, said it makes the "same promises" on tax and immigration as have been made since 2010.

Mr Farage's reaction came after Rishi Sunak today launched his manifesto at the Silverstone motor racing circuit.

Writing on X, the Brexit architect said: "The 2024 Conservative manifesto makes the same promises on tax and immigration that it made in 2019, 2017, 2015 and 2010.

"Don’t believe a single word of it."

The Prime Minister pledged to halve immigration and unveiled a £17.2 billion package of tax cuts as he fights to keep his place in No 10.

The Tories promised to cut a further 2p off employees' national insurance by April 2027 and abolish the main rate of the tax for the self-employed entirely by the end of the Parliament.

Mr Sunak said: "We are cutting taxes for workers, for parents and pensioners, and we are the party of Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson, a party, unlike Labour, that believes in sound money."

In total, the package of employee and self-employed national insurance cuts - combined with the previously announced "triple lock plus" tax break for pensioners, changes to child benefits for high earners, taking most first-time buyers out of stamp duty and suspending capital gains tax on sales to tenants - would amount to a £17.2 billion annual cost to the Exchequer by 2029-30.

He set out plans to slash immigration as he responded to political pressure from the right of his party and concerns about the threat posed by Reform UK.

Mr Sunak acknowledged that "migration has been too high in recent years" but said: "Our plan is this: we will halve migration as we have halved inflation, and then reduce it every single year."

The manifesto commits to require migrants to undergo a health check in advance of coming to the UK - with the prospect of paying a higher rate of the immigration health surcharge or forcing them to purchase insurance if they are "likely to be a burden on the NHS".

It confirmed plans for a "binding, legal cap" on work and family visas which would "fall every year of the next Parliament and cannot be breached".

As well as measures to reduce legal migration, the manifesto committed to "stop the boats" crossing the English Channel, including through the Rwanda asylum scheme - with the first flights promised in July.

But the document stops short of saying the UK could leave the European Convention on Human Rights, as some on the Tory right, including former home secretary Suella Braverman, have called for.

The convention, and the Strasbourg court which rules on it, has been a major stumbling block in the effort to send migrants on a one-way trip to Rwanda.