Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has been put on the spot by the person many consider to be the country’s most controversial landlord.
Fergus Wilson - whose buy to let portfolio in the south east of England at one time ran to around 1,000 properties - has written a letter to Farage, whose new party has so far given no indication of its views on anything other than the principle of leaving the EU.
Wilson’s letter reads:
Dear Nigel,
PRIVATE SECTOR LANDLORDS and PROVISION OF HOUSING
Congratulations on your re-election as a MEP. I rather suspect the Brexit Party will be contesting the next General Election and would be grateful for your frankness as to the supply of housing.
It is clear from today’s announcement regarding the lack of money for old people and social care that HMG has no money to provide housing.
The Government is very heavily dependant on Private Sector Landlords (PSLs) providing houses to be rented. However, at the same time it is driving away potential landlords and existing landlords by its Punitive Tax Measures.
No Private Sector Landlord then no Private Sector Housing!
About 18% of British adults own a Private Sector Rented house. In those houses there is a Private Sector Tenant! That is 36% of the electorate.
As I am sure you are aware, very many PSLs voted for Brexit because of HMG tax regime.
If the Brexit Party is swept into power at the next General Election will it restore Landlord Tax to the previous Headline Rate and put Capital Gains Tax (CGT) down to a flat 10% for everyone?
Yours sincerely,
Fergus Wilson
Farage said in the aftermath of his party’s European Elections success that if the new Prime Minister had failed to take Britain out of the EU by the latest deadline of October 31, the Brexit Party would stand at a future General Election.
However, there is no reference to any policies beyond Brexit on the party’s website, but there is an invitation for people interested in becoming a party candidate at a future general election.
Farage has himself stood for the Westminster Parliament on seven occasions, all unsuccessful and on one occasion attracting only 1.7 per cent of the vote.
Fergus Wilson and his wife Judith bought their first buy to let property in 1991 and say they have provided homes for about 10,000 tenants since that time.
They are now retiring and selling their portfolio.
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I'm sure the Brexit party and Nigel Farage is concentrating on, well 'Brexit' at the moment, given its a new party. However I DO think as a businessman, he has the acumen to make a much better job of running the country than the other clowns we've been watching for decades.
Not sure being better than "the other clowns" is much of an endorsement - my dog would make a better job than the current politicians
I will vote for Farage as I am sure many others will. I have always felt he puts Britian first.
The Torie party is a complete mess and I would not trust any candidate currently after May's job.
Labour communist party the country and its people will be doomed. We might as all give up work if they get in.
In fact I would very much like to see Farage as PM
I'd go with Farage too Kathy. He's a straight talker, which is something we're not used to these days. The only one I can think of in the Tory party is IDS and he's not standing for leadership.
Given the fact he's failed to get elected seven times, even in Brexit strongholds such as South Thanet, he's got about as much chance of becoming PM as I have.
I think he's more than happy for the situation to remain as it is, so he can continue claiming his lucrative MEP's salary while also railing against what an awful institution the EU is.
Farage puts Farage first!
@ Sue Kelly
Farage puts Farage first?? Not true about other politicians then?
I would be interested to find out the views of the Conservative candidates towards housing and whether they would continue with Hammond as Chancellor. I know John Redwood thinks the attacks on landlords are a mistake as he writes it in his blog so hopefully he isn't the only one in the Conservative party who is of this opinion.
Arnie, IDS, JRM and Andrea Leadsom are also pro-landlord. AL is directly affected by S24.
Policies? Who needs policies? Much easier to rabble rouse, sow division and offer incredibly simplistic solutions to complex, nuanced problems.
He says Brexit must be delivered, but what does that even mean? Should it be delivered at all costs with a crash out, incredibly harmful no deal just because the people (well, 51.9% of those who actually voted) said it should happen?
And what are his plans post-Brexit, on workers rights, the environment, trade, the economy, services, citizens rights (both for EU nationals here and British nationals living in Europe), health, security, etc, etc? How are the various science projects and initiatives that rely on EU funding going to be funded? How are places like Cornwall, Wales, the North West and seaside towns going to be supported given they all receive high levels of EU funding? What about the Irish border? What will our immigration policy be? How long will it take to create new trade deals with the EU and the rest of the world? How will the trade deal be better than the one we have now? What will happen to farmers, who rely heavily on EU grants and subsidies?
How long will we trade on WTO rules for? Will we keep the same regulations, food standards and health and safety rules as the EU or turn to chlorinated chicken from the US instead?
These are the questions that need answering, but of course you won't hear Farage or any of the arch Brexiteers coming up with any solutions. They just shout loudly from the sidelines. Where did Farage disappear to once Brexit had happened? Oh, that's right, he was lording it up with Trump and hosting his own talk-in show.
Farage doesn't give a monkey's about anyone other than Farage. He's like Boris in that respect. Only in it for himself and his own ego.
The fact that so many people - including posters on these very pages - have fallen for his posh snake-oil salesman act is immensely depressing. Nigel 'Dulwich College alumni, city stockbroker, part of the establishment for years' is so far from being a man of the people it's not even funny. A charlatan, a serial liar and an expenses cheat to boot - yes, he's definitely the man to run our country!
Nothing has been ‘fallen for’, I wanted all the things he stands for before he even came along, so I’m fully in favour and hope he achieves great success. Why have YOU fallen for the lies and idiocy of the left?
And how many of this list of policies have we seen sound convictions from the current administration. Housing for example?
@John McKay - what are Farage's policies on housing exactly?
What are his policies on anything other than Brexit? And even that's not a policy - 'leave the EU at all costs, even it causes catastrophic issues."
Yeah, nice one.
What??? You think we should vote Tory??? After the betrayal of their core voters and a list of 23 changes to the sector in the last 4 years? Not all are bad and not all are significant but enough of them are to ensure that I and many more people will never vote for them again.
None of the mainstream parties support the PRS but there are landlords working with Farage right now on forming a housing policy.
You stick with your lefty Conservative party if you wish but don't expect others that have been disgusted with these faux Tories to do the same.
it's too early to start asking NF about national issues until Brexit is resolved. They are an EU party at the moment and not until there's a general election will you be able to see if the Brexit party has enough of a mandate to govern either independently or in a coalition with probably the Conservatives!
There's enough support for the Brexit Party so don't knock NF if he's reaching the parts other politicians can't reach.
He's painting an incredibly complex issue as an easy and problem-free one. "Let's just Brexit' is his mantra - but then what?
How long do we trade on WTO rules for? What will the economic damage be in the short, medium and long-term? How will business and investment be affected?
You can't just say "Brexit, no if, not buts" with no plans. You can't promise unicorns and a land of milk and honey without anything to back it up. Farage has absolutely no interest in running the country - the man couldn't run a bath, and has no experience of high office. He can't compromise or collaborate, he's a terrible diplomat, and when questioned he has no answers.
"Which other country trades purely on WTO rules, Mr Farage?"
"Look, democracy, Brexit, independence, anti-elite...they've let you down."
"Yes, but which other country trades on WTO rules alone?"
"Bluster, bluster, bluster...look, a squirrel! The evil, undemocratic EU."
People putting their faith in Farage are about to get a short, sharp shock.
NF could well be the kingmaker.
As such he would then insist on PR as the new electoral system.
That would break the power of the two major parties and facilitate a far more representative democracy.
Plus it should reduce the number of MPs to about 300.
Personally I have no qualms about NF being PM.
The Establishment needs to be shaken up.
Did some idiot on here actually describe Nigel Farage as a business man? LOL! that blustering fraud cares only for himself. if he cared about business he would not have put his country through three years of economic depression! Especially in the property sector! And these dolts can vote! Promoting Nigel Farage politically is like turkeys voting for the advance of Christmas!
Economic depression.
I haven't noticed such. Things would have been made far easier had the UK left the EU when originally scheduled.
The sooner we leave with No Deal the better.
The UK does NOT need to be in the EU to thrive.
We managed perfectly well before the Common Market.
The UK does not need to be in a political construct called the EU.
As a sovereign state the UK will manage all its own affairs.
The sooner this happens the better.
Free movement of Labour will be banned.
Migrants from wherever in the world they come from that have the skills the Govt determines are needed will be admitted.
Just the same system as Australia has had very successfully for the past 70 years.
If this results in a smaller PRS then good!!!
Perhaps it will stop all the LL bashers from bashing.!?
NF can't do any worse than Labour and Tories!
I'm more than content to give him a go.
The UK is heading for the broad sunny uplands.
The sooner the better.
No more money to the EU and vast reductions in foreign aid by billions.
As for Ireland sod the bog Irish.
Let them become one nation.
We don't want anything to do with bigoted Protestant Irish.
If they want to carry on killing eachother then let them but let the Irish Govt police the situation.
It would give the Irish Army something to do.
The UK doesn't want NI to be part of of the UK anymore.
It would also save the UK having to contribute over 10 billion to keep NI afloat.
Let the Irish Govt pay that with a United Ireland.
Agree and have been saying it for a while NF does not need to nail his policy to any mast. Yet. He is about getting out of Brexit at the moment.
After that he will be kingmaker he and Boris with New policies will be in charge, old Tories history, hammond gone.Easter Mavey too, many others.
Labour will be history too any one who supports these hamas supports and its crew of wasters wants their head testing, as for Liberal, cant say much about them other than they hunt with the hounds and run with the foxes.
Whilst i have a portfolio of properties and have been in this game for some 35 years, we need a government that scraps UC, puts huge amounts into NHS, POLICE, ARMED FORCES , EDUCATION AND SCHOOLS. THen reviews Womens pensions who have been put back 6 years with some losing over £40k, stupid thing is some of these women are now on benefits, weres the logic? They have paid into system just like the men. Encourage more private investment into rental sector, remove S24. Get rid of Deposit Protect in current form, keep tenant fee cap. More protection for landlords with disputed cases.
Unless the neo-liberal elite are given their marching orders there is little chance of anything you suggest coming to pass.
A great shame of course.
But I just can't see it which is why I am still determined to leave the AST PRS.
With S24, S21 etc it just isn't worth the bother anymore.
It was only just about viable before but now no chance.
Paul Barrett,
Well if you haven't noticed all the business failures in the past three years, with British Steel in Scunthorpe shutting, loss of 25,000 jobs and jamie oliver's restaurant chain shutting, loss of 1,300 jobs in the past week alone, then you must be walking around with blinkers and ear muffs on!
Britain was doing OK before we joined the common market as it was called in 1973, was it? Almost bankrupt, riven by industrial strife, reduced by the powers workers' and miners' strike to a three day working week and burning candles and oil lamps in the evenings. that in your opinion is doing well is it for a civilised industrialised society? For shame! What hypocrisy! It was the impending bankruptcy of Britain that drove Ted Heath to be prepared to pool some of Britain's sovereignty, to join the Common Market! And he was right so to do, even though he knew that eventually the plan was to produce a federalist state of Europe, which by the way, still has not yet happened some 43 years later!
So you believe in the sunny uplands of Britain as an economic independent state do you? i suppose you believe in the tooth fairy and unicorns too!
I can tell you that the rebellion of so many MPs in Parliament against a 'no deal' departure means that it is as they say massively detrimental to Britain's economic survival! They don't want Britain to wind up like Greece where at the height of the financial crisis old pensioners lost half their pensions and many committed suicide because they had no way out! You in your brexiteer extremism don't care what the consequences will be.
Well, if you are so worried about pooling sovereignty to advance good causes you had better promote rescinding britain's membership of the United Nations and all the joint treaties we have signed with other nations!
Ban the free movement of Labour! It was just this source of plentiful, educated, motivated and moderately priced labour that helped with Britain's economic well being for the past two decades! it also helped to prevent the resurgence of union power which Maggie Thatcher did much to undermine with laws banning secondary picketing and requiring a vote of the members before a strike could be called. So we leave, labour becomes more scarce and the unions will resurge again. I don't think that is a good result for our society. That way anarchy and chaos lie!
You have spoken of the benefits of reducing the arrivals of immigrants/migrants to Britain. Well, I've seen a reduction of migrants from the EU from 298,000 to a mere 50,000 last year, which you would welcome, except that their places have been taken by blow-ins from all over the world, with almost no control since the numbers of their arrivals have risen from a steady 300,000 to 561,000. How is this controlling our borders with your points based plan? And don't even get me started on the water taxis Britain's coast guard is forced to run to save the sinking boat people from camps like what used to be called the Jungle just outside Calais! Do you think these illegal immigrants, who obviously respect no laws and havew been forced to live live animals through desperation, do you think they are going to suddenly turn into hardworking law abiding citizens? Well, let me disabuse you of that notion immediately. I saw a video of just such an immigrant from Africa to Germany. He was already a criminal and he said that they were all in Germany to milk the system until it was destroyed and commit as much crime as possible. Why do you think AfD - Alternative for Germany is so popular? So instead of having some 298,000 hard working European migrants bolstering our economy both with their work and their taxes, we now have 561,000 blow-ins, most of whom are either direct drains on the exchequer or engaging in criminal activity and drug dealing! Good policy change that!!! Your points system works in Australia because geographically they are remote, and they are also prepared to imprison illegal immigrants in camps on Papua New Guinea, which earns well from the arrangement. Can you imagine what all the bleeding-heart liberals would say if we did the same with our illegals and kept them locked up on the Outer Hebridies? There would be demonstrations daily on the streets of London!
So you care as little about the will of most of the Northern Irish to remain part of Britain as you do about the welfare of the British economy, including the welfare of the private rented sector. Well I think I know what most landlords on here will think of your ideas, that they are extremist brexshit. No one with half a brain cell would support Nigel Farage for PM without knowing a single thing about his policies!
Your ideas are dangerous and its because there is such a vociferous minority that support brexit that Britain is in this mess!
No more so than in any other business cycle.
The sooner a No Deal BrExit occurs the better.
This is what was voted for.
It needs to be carried out ASAP.
Forget economic effects they matter not.
What will be will be.
I have every confidence in the ability of the UK to thrive in world markets uninhibited by the protectionist EU.
The sooner the UK starts on its sovereign journey the better.
That is what was voted for and so it must occur.
As regards migration it has been an unmitigated disaster.
Millions of unwanted and unneeded migrants depending on Working Tax credits to make low paid jobs viable.
Most BrExit voters have no problems with appropriate migration.
Something I fully support.
The UK just curently doesn't have sufficiently robust migration regulations to only allow the migrants that a duly elected sovereign UK Govt decides are required.
Just like the Aussies do.
Any migrant fetching up on our shores I would immediately return.
The last time I looked there were all safe countries off UK shores.
The only way I would accept the UK as being the first safe country is if the migrant landed at a UK airport.
I agree that there is no need to provide UK Border Agency Cutters as effective taxis for what are actually illegal economic migrants.
The UK must have control of its borders.
Remaining in the EU prevents this.
Such a state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.
Which is why leaving the EU will greatly assist border control.
But the UK must be open to those migrants that the UK needs.
The UK cannot allow its economy to degrade for lack of skilled workers.
If the reality is that the UK has to scour the world for such skilled workers then so be it.
Until the UK can train sufficient skilled workers that it requires then the UK will need to plunder the skilled workers of other nations.
Even the most ardent nationalist could not in all seriousness deny that the UK will need skilled migrants for years to come.
This obviously is as a result of the complete failure of the UK education and training system.
Migration is the price that the UK had to pay.
This causes pressures on available housing stock and has ultimately resulted in S24 etc.
There are always major effects when control isn't exerted.
Blair throwing open the borders to a EU allcomers ultimately resulted in the EU referendum with its leave vote.
Remember this was a political strategy to rub the right's nose into diversity.
Well the right has got its own back by voting OUT!!
In the past two years businesses have been failing at record levels.
obviously you have a trust fund parked in an off-shore tax-haven, so you don't care about a wrecked economy! Very few are in that fortunate position!
perhaps you ought to look at the current economic problems and the even larger threatening economic problems a no deal departure would cause from the point of view of the majority and not the few who can ride out such turbulent times! that is what your advocacy of no deal departure promises, and even the MPs know this which is why they have quashed it.
I hope you read your post before sending it. Such choice phrases like 'plunder the skilled workers of the world'. one would almost think you want to bring back the British empire. because this is a reverse form of colonialism!
one of the reasons why we don't have enough British workers trained, skilled or unskilled is because like all western countries Britain has not been breeding at replacement levels. Furthermore, because having children is delayed by 10-15 years or more beyond a child-bearing age to produce healthy children, much of the stock is weak and sickly and will always depend on welfare to survive! the fact that they have welfare that allows them to idle their time away will only encourage them not to make the effort to learn whilst at school to achieve some qualifications to improve their lives and make a contribution to society.
Perhaps we should vote for politician with economic background rather than just any tom dick and harry that came on board. Moreover, most kids were spoilt and not discipline and not taught to work to earn a living. They just wasted away generations after generations because of the welfare state ability to give benefits to many of those who are not entitled and refused those who actually had a genuine needs and health issues. They are the ones that game the system. However, this is also dependent on the staff who evaluate the applicants. If you look at the Asian countries, they are not welfare state and every decent parents would teach their kids that hard work is the way to go or they starve or live on the streets.
Nobody voted for a no deal brexit. Because nobody in 2016 was campaigning for a no deal brexit.
It is obvious that the referendum returned a majority for leaving the EU. But nobody campaigned for no deal. Please remember that.
Nigel should have a view on landlord issues because he is an experienced tenant. The only difference for him is that Aaron Banks pays the rent for Nigel's home in a nice area of town.
Farage will not answer this question. He has no policies.
The current political system is poor. But please do not presume that NF is the answer.
PR would be wonderful because it would hopefully mean coalitions would have to be formed and that politicians from different sides would have to make compromises. But the worst possible outcome for Britain would be Farage in any position of power.
Err!! yes they did.
We voted leave deal or no deal.
Simples!!
If our stupid Parliament won't agree to any deal the the UK must leave with No Deal.
Once the UK has left then negotiations may commence.
Farage will be the kingmaker. And we could be getting out of EU with no deal for EU rulers?
@Suzy
When I stated plundering all I was referring to was that the UK Govt puts out an advert for skilled workers and then around the world they will flock to the UK to answer the ad
Not their fault.
Govt advertises for skilled workers and they will come.
Shouldn't those skilled workers remain in their home countries where they are probably needed!?
I would like to hear what these countries think about their skilled workers flocking to the UK.
I don't want the UK stripping the economies of other countries of their presumably vitally needed skilled workers.
i believe that every individual have their human rights to work where they please to provide for themselves and their families. If the country does not want to lose their skill workers, then they have to give a more lucrative deal than UK has to offer. to retain their skill workers.
Isn't there a problem though in that the attractions of 1st world economies have irresistible temptations!?
It is I believe a sort of reverse colonialism.
Other countries economies surely need their skilled workers to remain.
Of course there may be circumstances that there are surpluses of certain skilled workers and that being the case then I have no issues with them being attracted to the UK.
But I certainly don't want the UK to throw around its big 1st world weight to impoverish other nations of what maybe their small pool of skilled workers.
Of course I appreciate that attracting skilled workers can be useful on the basis that those skilled workers eventually return home with additional experience and knowledge to impart to their home countries.
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