Lord Ashcroft, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, once said that for Ukip voters "policies are secondary. It is much more to do with outlook".

That may be a good thing for Ukip's leader, Nigel Farage, a natural rebel who has built a movement on protest votes. However, the party's national manifesto, last drawn up in 2010, gives a sense of what a Ukip Britain, outside the European Union, would look like.

Tax and the economy



• Merge income tax and national insurance into a flat 31% for all starting at £11,500. Scrap employers' NI with revenue recouped from corporation tax, VAT or reduced welfare.

• Cut state spending to 1997 levels with loss of two million public sector jobs, replaced by one million new manufacturing jobs and at least another million created because of Ukip's lower tax environment.

• Council tax cut paid for by axeing landfill tax and cull of town hall "non jobs". The defence equipment budget will be doubled to £8bn, £3.5bn will be spent on nuclear power plants to provide 50% of energy, and more prisons will be built.

Immigration

• Five-year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement followed by 50,000 annual cap.

• Work permits to be time-limited and overstaying made a crime. No amnesty for illegal immigrants: all returned to home country.

• Minimum five-year wait for British citizenship with no rights to benefits and all asylum seekers to be held in secure units.

• End active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism.

Crime

• Life sentences mean life.

• Deport dangerous imams, terror suspects and wanted criminals more easily by scrapping the Human Rights Act.

• Double prison places and create "boot camps" for young offenders.

• Scrap the "politically correct" Crown Prosecution Service and return to local police prosecutions.

Defence

• Increase spending by 40%, double the size of the Territorial Army and increase total armed forces numbers by 25%.

• Buy three new aircraft carriers and 50 more Lightning fighter jets.

• Arm four new submarines with US nuclear missiles.

Health

• Franchise out key services including hospitals and GP surgeries to companies and charities.

• Create voucher system to allow people to opt out of NHS system entirely.

• Matrons to run hospitals, not non-clinically trained managers.

• Free eye tests and dental checks.

• Smoking rooms in pubs.

Welfare

• Non means-tested "basic cash benefit" for low earners and unemployed. Jobseekers allowance and incapacity benefit is scrapped.

• Child benefit for the first three children only.

• No benefits for anyone who has not lived in the UK for five years.

Environment

• Support coal-fired power and oppose wind farms.

• Stop funding UN's climate change panel.

• Ban schools from showing Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth.

• Incentivise the production of electric cars.

• Build 200mph rail lines from London to Newcastle and Exeter.