Ukip Margate conference: Paul Nuttall declares class war on rival political parties

Paul Nuttall has declared class war on rival political parties and claimed that only Ukip have put forward policies that would push working class children up the social mobility ladder.

The Ukip deputy leader also said that his party was changing the face of British politics because they "look like and sound like normal people".

"We've all had jobs and we've all got back stories. You look, for example, at the Labour front bench, you look at Ed Miliband. I look at the Labour front bench and I think 'I wouldn't see any of you sitting down in a working men's club and enjoying a drink,'" he said.

Nuttall, speaking at Ukip's spring conference in Margate, argued that the "big point" is about jobs and attacked rival party leaders over their backgrounds.

"You look at David Cameron, you look at Nick Clegg, you look at Miliband - none of these people have ever had a proper job in their lives," he said.

"What do these people do? Well, in general go to Oxbridge, they study politics, philosophy and economics, they get a job in an MPs' office and become an MP without ever having a life experience. It is rotten and it's rotten to the core within our political system."

Nuttall went on to claim, to much applause, that Ukip has "common sense answers to nonsensical problems" and attacked the government over the rise in net migration to the UK.

"Let's be frank about this. The idea that you can allow 624,000 people to come to your country in a year is an awful thing; it's a city the size of Liverpool and Aberdeen put together. Net it's more than 290,000 - a city the size of Hull. It's driving down wages and putting people out of work," he said.

"We want a points based immigration system like Australia, where if you've got the skills that this country needs then 'yes, please come here'."

The comments come after some of Ukip's heavyweights made speeches at the two-day seaside conference.

The party will be boosted after a poll from Populus found that Ukip were on 16%, up from their usual 15% of the vote.

The survey, which questioned more than 2,000 voters between 25 and 27 February, also revealed that Labour had a two point lead over the Tories (33% vs 31%) with less than 70 days to go before the general election in May.