Politics

Farage: It’s possible I could become PM

3 months ago
Farage: It's possible I could become PM

Nigel Farage has spoken about his aspirations as Reform UK party leader and insists he could become prime minister.

He told Sky’s political correspondent Darren McCaffrey the prospect of taking over at Number 10 at some point “may not be probable, but it’s certainly possible”.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham, he also described his intention to change the party and make it more democratic.

“I don’t want it to be a one man party. Look, this is not a presidential system. If it was, I might think differently about it. But no, it’s not. We have to be far more broadly based,” he said.

He also accepted there were issues with how the party was perceived by some during the general election.

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Highlights of Farage’s conference speech

“We had a problem,” he admitted. “Those that wished us harm use the racist word. And we had candidates who genuinely were.”

Earlier the party leader and Clacton MP gave his keynote speech at the conference, explaining how they intend to win even more seats at the next general election.

He also called out the prime minister for accepting free gifts and mocked the candidates in the Tory leadership race.

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Farage jokes about PM accepting gifts

But he turned to more serious points, too – promising that Reform UK will “be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels” in future.

Addressing crowds in Birmingham, Mr Farage said the party has not got “time” or “room” for “a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members”.

Farage says Reform UK needs to ‘grow up’

By Darren McCaffrey, political correspondent in Birmingham

Reform and Nigel Farage can hardly believe their success.

Perhaps unsurprising, given they received over four million votes and now have five MPs.

But today this is a party that claims it has bigger ambitions – that it’s fighting for power.

Having taken millions of votes from the Conservatives, the party thinks it can do so with Labour voters too.

Reform finished second in 98 constituencies, 89 of them are Labour seats.

But it is a big ask, not least of all because it is a party still dominated by its controversial leader and primarily by one majority issue – migration.

Nigel Farage says the party needs to grow up and professionalise if it has a chance of further success.

This is undoubtedly true but if Reform is going to carry on celebrating, they know it also has to broaden its policy appeal beyond the overwhelming concern of its members.

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“The infant that Reform UK was has been growing up,” he said in his speech and pointed towards the success of the Liberal Democrats at the general election.

He told delegates his party has to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” which secured 72 seats on a smaller popular vote share than Reform UK.

He said: “The Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas, and despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all. In fact, the whole thing’s really rather vacuous, isn’t it? But they manage with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in parliament.”

Reform won more than four million votes in July, and 14% of the vote share – more than the Lib Dems.