Ukip accepts EU exit could take several years

Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, in Brussels. Britain's withdrawal from the EU could take years, says candidate Janice Atkinson. Photograph: François Lenoir/Reuters

Ukip will have to negotiate a withdrawal from the European Union over many years and the party still has to work out the details of how it would secure such an exit, a leading Ukip MEP candidate in May's European elections has conceded.

Janice Atkinson, who is number two on the party's candidate list in the South East England constituency, admitted it would be impossible just to walk away from the EU.

Her remarks at a public meeting in Brighton last week underline the extent to which key details of Ukip policy have yet to be developed.

Atkinson was also reluctant to give details on the party's policies on immigration and housing: "We have got policies but we're not releasing them just yet."

Polls suggest a tougher approach to immigration is one of Ukip's chief appeals, but the party says its position on existing migrants from the EU and other immigration matters is still being developed.

Asked if it would take as long as five years to leave the EU, Atkinson told the meeting: "You can't just literally walk away because we have got so many trade agreements." But she insisted that the EU could not stop the UK's withdrawal, saying there were various ways out including invoking article 51 of the EU treaty.

"We won't get into the nitty gritty of it … we can do it," she said. "It will take a few years' of negotiation to come out because we have got so many trade agreements and we have got to back out of those and we have to set up new trade agreements. At the moment, we are discussing how we will have this slow withdrawal – it won't just be a cut-off because there are jobs involved with EU trading with us … we are actually discussing internally how we try to handle that at the moment. We will have something to announce on that pretty soon."

Asked if it would take as long as five years she said: "You can't just literally walk away because we have got so many trade agreements." She added: "[Some] 70% of our laws come from this. We have got to unbind those laws as well".

Atkinson also admitted that Ukip MEPs would not turn up to vote in the European parliament. "Ukip MEPs are not elected to go there and vote," she said.

She added that the party's housing policies will be published before the European elections and will include a requirement that priority to social housing will go to people that have local connections, going back two generations.

At the same event, another prospective Ukip MEP Ray Finch said: "If it is was down to me, I would just send them a note saying 'we are off'." But, he added: "We have to be good neighbours – part of being good neighbours is negotiating a free and fair withdrawal from what the EU means. We could turn round and say to the EU 'we want this agreement with you on cross-border hospital treatment or whatever they have any idea on but it will come from our own people; it won't come from you, it will come from us'."

Finch said Ukip would make St George's Day a national holiday and that the British intelligentsia suffered from self hatred.

He cited George Orwell from his essays The Lion and The Unicorn claiming "the British intelligentsia is the only one in Europe that actively hates its own country". According to Finch: "Orwell was right then and he was right now."

He added: "So we have done bad things in our past; every country has. We have got these Caribbean countries asking for slavery reparation. Perhaps we should go over to Denmark and ask for reparations for the Vikings and from the Italians when the Romans came over. You just have to be proud about where you come from. It doesn't mean you dislike anyone else."

The Liberal Democrat president, Tim Farron, responding to Atkinson's remarks, said : "Finally, Ukip admit they are putting millions of British jobs at risk. Pulling out of the EU would be a disaster for Britain, wrecking the recovery and putting British jobs and businesses in jeopardy.

"Only the Liberal Democrats are standing up for British jobs and standing up to Ukip. That's why Nick Clegg challenged Nigel Farage to an in-out debate and it's why the Liberal Democrats are fighting to keep Britain in Europe."