Nigel Farage has taken a swipe at Rishi Sunak as he boasted that he is the “leader of the opposition”.
The Reform UK criticised Rishi Sunak’s Tories as he said their brand is “broken”. He claimed Reform UK could win over six million votes – a target he will now be measured on meeting.
Mr Farage challenged Mr Starmer to a head-to-head debate and demanded to be included in a BBC four-way leaders’ debate, which will see the Tories, Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP take part. “I think we can demand of right now that the BBC put us in to that debate,” he said. “I would also very much like to do a debate head-to-head with Keir Starmer and the reason’s very simple – we think this should be the immigration election.”
Speaking at a hastily arranged press conference in Westminster, he said: “It isn’t going to be Rishi Sunak leading the opposition – I mean, he’ll probably be in California anyway. The Conservatives will choose someone and they probably won’t last very long. And they can’t provide opposition because they are hopelessly split down the middle on policy … I put it to you that I believe I can be that voice of opposition.”
Pressed on whether he would be better off joining the Tories if he wanted to be Leader of the Opposition, Mr Farage said: “Boring, boring, boring”. “The brand is broken. It’s gone. It’s done,” he added. Last night Reform UK overtook the Tories in a poll for the first time. The YouGov survey showed support for his party rising by two points to 19%, as the Tories remained on 18%.
Speaking about his hopes for Reform’s performance at the General Election, he said: “We are not going to get four million votes, we’re not going to get five million votes, we’re going to get a very, very substantial number of votes. I genuinely think we can get over six million votes. I don’t know where the ceiling is.”
Mr Farage announced he was standing to be MP for Clacton and that he would lead Reform UK into the General Election in a shock U-turn a fortnight ago. The party has been facing criticism over its candidates’ selection process. Most recently one candidate was forced to apologise after suggesting the UK should have stayed neutral during WWII in a 2022 post.