British voters should be given the final say on any government policy through a referendum if enough people sign a petition to hold one, Nigel Farage has said.
Speaking to the Institute for Government think-tank, the leader of the UK Independence party suggested overhauling the British electoral system to restrain the power of prime ministers and their governments.
Mr Farage said: "There is a major crisis, a breakdown of trust in his country, between the voters and the parties of government . . . Perhaps we need some complete redefinition of how our democratic system works."
He added: "There will be a commitment in our manifesto for us to campaign for direct democracy."
The Ukip leader added that he believed such a system would have prevented British military interventions overseas as well as the planned high speed HS2 rail line.
Even if Mr Farage is elected as an MP next year, polls show his party is unlikely to do well enough to form any part of a government, which makes his policy suggestions more of a campaigning platform than a serious blueprint.
But the Ukip leader's decision to venture away from his party's main topics of Europe and immigration and tackle domestic policy instead - in front of an audience heavily populated by civil servants - shows his ambition for Ukip to be taken seriously.
Earlier this year, Mr Farage disowned his party's entire 2010 manifesto, which was included policies such as compulsory uniforms for taxi drivers and painting trains in "more traditional colours".
His first steps to rebuilding a domestic policy agenda included not only referendums on any issue, which would be triggered by 5 per cent of voters signing a petition, but also an end to public funding for non-governmental organisations.
Those in the audience criticised the Ukip leader for both ideas. Civil servants said that even the possibility of regular referendums could disrupt planning and investment in sensitive areas such as energy policy. One official from the energy department suggested the British public were likely to vote against any form of nuclear power, for example.
Mr Farage rejected criticism that his system would turn Britain into a version of Switzerland, where everything from minarets on mosques to rail improvements have been decided by a public vote, or California, where some say referendums are partly responsible for the state's financial problems. The Ukip leader said it would be unusual that any petition would garner the 2.3m signatures needed to trigger a vote.
Meanwhile his claim that the "lion's share" of funding for NGOs actually comes from taxpayers has also been questioned. Mr Farage singled out Greenpeace for criticism, saying the charity does not campaign against EU fisheries policy because of the money it receives from the European Commission. Greenpeace said on Monday that it received no public funding.
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