BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom, March 29, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Leader of anti-immigration party Reform UK Nigel Farage on Friday proposed a possible UK version of the United States' so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) if the party was elected.

Farage was speaking at a rally to launch his party's campaign ahead of local elections in parts of the UK and the first major by-election test for Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer since he was elected.

"We need a British form of DOGE, as Elon Musk has got in America," he told the rally in Britain's second city of Birmingham, referring to the unelected tech billionaire's new department which is part of Trump's cost-cutting drive.

Public sector spending had "grown out of all proportion" and must be cut, he said.

He added that the party would slash taxes, with no one paying income tax until they earned over £20,000 ($23,900) a year.

"We are on the side of the worker, we're on the side of working people, we want to incentivise those on benefits to get off benefits and go back to work," he said.

Deputy leader Richard Tice also echoed the language of US President Donald Trump's presidential campaign by asking if the audience wanted to "make Britain great again".

Reform secured 14 percent of the vote at Britain's last general election on July 4, 2024, winning five seats in the 650-seat parliament -- an unprecedented haul for a hard-right party in the UK.

One member has since been suspended and now sits as an independent.

Local elections will take place in 24 of England's 317 councils on May 1 alongside the by-election in the Runcorn and Helsby constituency in northwestern England where Labour secured more than 50 percent of the vote last year.

Starmer swept into power at the election on promises of delivering growth and slashing immigration.

But his government's popularity has taken a hit due to poor results in both areas and several unpopular budget decisions.

Denouncing both Labour and the main opposition Conservatives' record on immigration, Farage said he had come out of retirement last year because he believed he could get "our country back on track"

"I genuinely believe that if we don't arrest the level of economic and societal decline that we are rapidly going into that within a few years, this country won't even resemble anything that we've grown up with that we love," he said.

Farage announced that the party now had topped 220,000 members.

The centre-right Conservatives revealed in November that they had 131,680 members, while Labour party had around 370,000 at the end of 2023.

Reform damaged the Conservatives' at last year's election by splitting the right-wing vote and since then has hampered the party's attempts to re-establish itself after it was ousted following 14 years in government.

Farage's party last month topped a YouGov poll of voting intentions on 27 percent, two points ahead of Labour.