Reform UK has overthrown Tories as main opposition party, Farage says
Reform UK has unseated the Conservatives as the main threat to the government, Nigel Farage has said, as he seeks to cement Reform’s poll lead over Britain’s oldest political party.
The Brexit campaigner said the Conservative party have “ceased to be a national party, they are now an irrelevance in Scotland … in Wales … in the Red Wall.”
Farage warned that the party is entering “the second step” in “what is going to be the biggest political revolution this country has seen since the Labour party overtook the Liberals over 100 years ago,” adding that the Conservative party “had a good 200 years, it is now finished.”
The bullish remarks come off the back of this month’s local election results, where the Reform party won 677 seats – largely at the expense of the Tories, who lost 674.
Farage’s speech underscores expectations that the next election will be fought on many axes, with the voter share distributed across a number of parties.
Farage outright dismissed the Tory party, telling its traditional voters that a Conservative vote is “a wasted vote” which will “keep Labour in power.”
Farage vs Tory ranks
In lieu of targeting the Tories’ track record from their 14 years in government, Farage resorted to Trump-like personal attacks.
He described likely Badenoch leadership rival Rob Jenrick as someone who’s “been on Ozempic, he’s running marathons, I’ve noticed a very nice new Saville row suit the other day, perhaps had his teeth done.”
The Reform leader castigated ex-PM Boris Johnson, whose potential return is also being touted as a panacea to the Conservatives’ ills, saying: “he’s got some pretty heavy domestic duties from the look of it.”
Farage referred to the Tories’ internal leadership struggles as “irrelevant,” because the party has “no chance at winning the next general election. None whatsoever.”
The Reform leader also criticised the Conservatives for their “betrayal” in not doing more to further national interests and the agenda of the UK’s right wing parties after winning 365 seats in 2019 – the biggest Tory majority since the 1980s – stating that “they fully deserve everything that’s happening to them.”
Tories respond
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride warned of the cost of Reform’s proposals to scrap the two child benefit cap and fully reinstate universal winter fuel allowance, which he estimated at “about £5bn worth of spending” on top of the “£60bn worth of commitment” to extend the income tax personal allowance to £20,000.
“None of it is thought through, none of it has sat down and done the hard yards of working out how this is all going to be paid for,” Stride said.