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Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, has expressed confidence that his party is taking over from the Conservative Party, which he described as “old” and “fuddy-duddy.” Recently, several prominent Conservative figures, including current MPs Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, Danny Kruger, and former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, have switched allegiance to Reform UK. Farage highlighted that his party now boasts more members from Liz Truss’s former cabinet than the current Conservative shadow cabinet led by Kemi Badenoch.
Speaking to the BBC’s Nick Robinson on Radio 4’s Political Thinking, Farage dismissed suggestions that Reform UK is simply a rebranded Conservative party. He remarked that it was “no surprise” that MPs are choosing to leave the Tories, anticipating that upcoming council elections in Scotland, Wales, and England would show a significant decline in support for the two major parties. He confidently predicted the end of the Conservative Party as a national force, stating, “We’ve replaced the old fuddy-duddy existing Conservative Party with a new force on the centre-right, that’s got a bit more energy, a bit more enthusiasm, a little bit more fire.”
Farage also revisited his earlier claim that a Labour defection was imminent following Robert Jenrick’s departure in January, reiterating that multiple Labour MPs could join Reform UK, though he tempered expectations by saying, “I haven’t got a magic wand. Things don’t always happen immediately, but it will happen.” The party is preparing for the Gorton and Denton by-election in Greater Manchester on 26 February, with candidate Matthew Goodwin vying to secure Reform UK’s ninth parliamentary seat.
During the campaign, discussions around British identity arose after Goodwin suggested that some UK-born people from minority backgrounds might not always consider themselves British, asserting that Britishness “takes more than a piece of paper.” Farage defined Britishness as an instinctive identification, explaining, “You’ve got to instinctively respond ‘I’m British’ to be part of it,” and emphasized that this sense of belonging was inclusive of all ethnicities. He claimed the party had garnered significant support from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities, surpassing Liberal Democrat votes in the 2024 general election. Farage expressed concerns that some people had been raised to “loathe the country,” a point that fed into his backing of Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s controversial remarks about the UK being “colonised by immigrants.” Farage agreed with Ratcliffe’s argument that mass migration had negatively impacted the country, saying, “What Jim is saying is that mass migration has done us harm and made us poorer and I think he is absolutely right.”
Responding to Reform UK’s growth, a Labour spokesperson pointed out that 26 former Conservative MPs and numerous ex-Tory councillors had defected to the party and questioned their trustworthiness, stating, “How do we know that Reform would decimate public services and make people poorer? Because it’s full of the same old failed Tories that did it all before. You simply can’t trust them.” The BBC has reached out to the Conservative Party for their response
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