The governing Conservative Party in the United Kingdom is on the “verge of collapse,” and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party could potentially outperform them in votes, he said while calling for a “political revolt” against the “boring idiots” in charge.
However, the Brexit leader made clear his ambitions were more national and long-term than merely looking to one seat at next month’s general election, as he laid out a plan for the next elections in five years and beyond. Even so, this election could see a major upset, Farage said, clearly buoyed by a major new poll today that shows the Conservative Party of Rishi Sunak — essentially the default governing party of the United Kingdom for two centuries — heading for a wipeout defeat.
Farage said he aimed for his party to “get many, many millions of votes” next month, more than the four million he got in 2015, and floated the possibility that Reform UK could actually eclipse the Tories themselves in terms of actual votes cast. He said: “We’re going to get a huge number of votes. I think there’s every chance we can get more votes than the Conservative party, I genuinely do… they are on the verge of total collapse and frankly, it couldn’t happen to nicer people.”
Reform UK, as the Brexit Party, has massively outpolled the Conservatives in a national election before, when it got 5.2 million votes against the Conservatives’ 1.5 million in the 2019 European Union Parliament elections in 2019, for instance. However, EU elections, while the UK was still in the bloc, were long treated as protest votes in Britain and pulling off the same achievement in a Westminster election would be a major feat. Certainly, Farage throwing his hat in the ring means a new political reality and pollsters have proven unreliable at judging his support in the past, so it is not certain that a Reform breakout in this election would be accurately forecast either way.
Big vote numbers or not, though, it would almost certainly not translate into seats, as Britain’s electoral system benefits well-established and well-funded national parties like Labour or the Conservatives at one end, or hyper-focused regional concerns like the Scottish Nationalists or the Greens and Liberals at the other. Nevertheless, Farage said he wanted to springboard from a vote-winning campaign this time to a seat-winning one next, after positioning itself as the de facto opposition party for the coming government.
He said: “We all know already that the Conservative Party will be in opposition, but it won’t be the opposition, they are incapable of it. They’ve spent most of the last five years fighting each other, rather than fighting for the interests of this country… we are going to be the voice of opposition. And I’ll tell you what: I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again. I’ll surprise everybody.”
Saying there would be no mercy for the Conservatives — even actually right-wing conservatives, because as good as they may be as individuals they had still propped up the worst period of mass migration in British history ever — Farage called on the British people to turn their backs on a system that no longer works. He said: “What I’m really calling for, and what I intend to lead, is a political revolt.”
“Yes, a revolt. A turning of our backs on the political status quo. It doesn’t work. Nothing in this country works any more… we are in decline. This will only be turned around with boldness. We will only recover our position with economic growth, that will only come when we get away from half a dozen multinationals dominating the thought of our politicians and allowing real entrepreneurism to flourish.”
In a rallying cry against “boring idiots” in politics, Farage said it was time to “make Britain great again”.
Sky News’s latest polling, as cited by Farage in his decision to stand today, will come as intensely sobering reading for the presently governing Conservative Party, which has for 14 years ruled on an apparent platform of promising the British people border control while delivering the exact opposite. Voters appear to have noticed this — not to mention other failures, not least on the economy and taxation — and are ready to punish them.
In a 650-seat House, the opposition Labour Party are estimated to take an enormous 422 seats — the largest majority in modern British political history — leaving the Conservatives with just 140.
.@Nigel_Farage news – a game changer. @BorisJohnson shot Farage’s fox. He never took his eye off the threat from the right. If Johnson were still leader, Farage wouldn’t have stood bcse Reform wouldn’t have had a winnable seat. So, to all Conservative MPs who all thought it…
— Rt Hon Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) June 3, 2024
