UKIP's Farage challenges EU trade 'myths'

Nigel Farage has said UKIP will "bust the myth" that leaving the EU would damage UK trade with other nations.

And he pledged his party will play a "vital role" in the forthcoming in-out referendum campaign.

Launching what the party described as its "opening salvo", the UKIP leader said the UK was "good enough" to operate on the world stage.

But pro-EU campaigners said UKIP's arguments for leaving the EU have no basis in economic facts.

Mr Farage was speaking at a press conference to launch a pamphlet, the Truth About Trade Beyond the EU, setting out the ways in which the UK could prosper by leaving the EU and pursuing its own trade agreements.

'Public deceived'

Mr Farage said the No campaign had started slowly, but rather than criticise Eurosceptic Conservative MPs, he blamed Labour for preventing debate and failing to provide an effective opposition.

The UKIP leader said the No campaign should be led by someone outside politics with "no political baggage", but said UKIP was an essential player.

He said his was the only united party which had the structure to galvanise support, and could reach out to Eurosceptic voters in the Midlands and North of England.

Mr Farage warned the European Commission would use public funding to promote the benefits of EU membership before and during the campaign, and there was little that could be done to stop that.

He appeared alongside MEP William Dartmouth and party chairman Steve Crowther.

Mr Dartmouth, UKIP's economic said the public had been "deceived" into believing three million jobs would be lost in the case of an EU exit.

In its pamphlet, The Truth About Trade Beyond The EU, UKIP argues that Britain does not need to be in the EU to have access to the single market and to export successfully.

It also argues that the UK would not be isolated if it left and could negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU without signing up to "free movement" rules.

Nigel Farage plans to be "extremely active" during the campaign

But Lucy Thomas, campaign director for the pro-EU campaign group Business for New Europe, said UKIP's arguments did not add up.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There is no explanation of why we should leave. We currently have the best of all worlds. We export almost 50% to the rest of the EU and there are no barriers, no tariffs, it's all really straightforward and so I am not sure why we would want to take a risk and leave that.

"There is no guarantee at all about what kind of standards there would be, what kind of tariffs and actually once we were to vote to leave we would have no say on the deal the rest of the EU decided to give us."