Nigel Farage has predicted a snap election in the foreseeable future, putting Reform UK on a national campaign footing. The party leader believes Prime Minister Andy Burnham will call a vote next May, prompting a tour to woo voters across the UK.
Farage said Burnham would likely go to the country after finding himself constrained by Labour’s current manifesto commitments and facing the prospect of a struggling economy. ‘He’ll look at it and say, “You know what, this is going to get worse”, and call a vote’, he said.
Emergency measures and poll struggles
The Prime Minister has denied an early poll is in the offing, insisting he anticipates the next election will take place no sooner than 2028. But the Reform leader said the party was working around the clock after he placed it into ’emergency measures’ three weeks ago.
Farage is hoping to turn his fortunes around after a tough summer in which Reform fell behind Labour in the polls following a slew of scandals surrounding the party’s finances and donors. An internal investigation cleared senior party officials Dan Jukes and James Orr of breaking electoral law.
Scandals and investigations
The pair had been caught in a sting operation aired on Channel 4, involving a fake American billionaire donor attempting to pay for favourable polling and breach funding rules by syphoning in money to the party from overseas via his London-based son. Reform has denied paying for any of the polls, which were conducted by JL Partners and featured on the front pages of the Telegraph and the Times.
While accusing both Jukes and Orr of using inappropriate language and setting out recommendations for improving the party’s procedures, the internal inquiry cleared both men of breaching any laws and attacked the documentary for showing a ‘distorted version of events’.
Farage’s finances and by-election
Farage’s personal financial arrangements are also the subject of a probe by the parliamentary standards commissioner. The MP for Clacton triggered a by-election which he later won after resigning from his seat following pressure over an undisclosed £5,000,000 donation given to him by crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, who has also backed Reform to the tune of more than £60,000,000.
Farage insisted the £5million paycheck was for his personal security, but has also suggested on other occasions he could do what he wanted with the funds. The Reform leader held onto his seat after the contest was boycotted by all other major parties, leaving satirical candidate Count Binface as the main contender. The claims continue to be the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation.
No pact with the Tories
It comes after Farage and other senior party figures dismissed any possibility they will form a pact with the Tories. Newark MP and Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick compared a possible ‘unite the right’ pact with his former party to being ‘handcuffed to a zombie’.
Kemi Badenoch had used her keynote speech at the Conservative conference to reject a deal with Farage. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Jenrick said: ‘The Tories ruling out a deal with Reform is like me saying to Thomas Tuchel that I’m ruling out being selected for the England squad versus Croatia.’
However, Farage was more vague about the chances of a pact, suggesting any agreement before an election was ‘extremely unlikely’ but less committal on whether he would enter a coalition with Badenoch after votes had been cast. ‘After an election, who’s to say?’ he said.
