"We don't know what UKIP stands for" say landlords

The National Landlords’ Association has set out a table of where the political parties stand on issues of lettings sector reform - but it has not been able to state UKIP’s views “because we genuinely do not know what they stand for.”

The NLA’s website includes a table of where the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens stand on the major lettings issues which have dominated so much of the general election debate - rent controls, longer tenancies, the creation of a national register of landlords, mandatory licensing, bans on letting agent fees to tenants, and the abolition of landlord tax breaks.

For the other four main parties there are detailed entries, drawn from the often-thorough policies set out in the manifestos.

However for UKIP, the NLA table has the same entry against every policy with the words: “????? No details in their manifesto.”

The explanatory notes at the foot of the table explain why.

“The UKIP Manifesto contained barely any mentions to the PRS so we genuinely do not know what they stand for. There have been several reports of supposed support for longer term tenancies however nothing we can corroborate. Given their leader’s own view of their last manifesto in 2010 we don’t want to rely on that and they declined to participate in our hustings debate in March” says the association.

And the view of the leader, Nigel Farage, on his party’s 2010 manifesto, referred to in that NLA statement? He said it was “drivel”.