Reform leader Nigel Farage says his party will win next UK election

BIRMINGHAM, England — Reform UK leader and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage lashed out at Britain’s ruling Labour Party on Friday, telling supporters his right-wing party was winning over voters disaffected by the government and would win the next election.

The 60-year-old self-proclaimed troublemaker hopes his party will be able to topple Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government in the next election due in 2029, after undermining the support of the once-dominant Conservatives in a vote earlier this year.

“The silent majority is already with us on the key issues we care about… We can win the next general election simply because of the number of people who agree with our principles.”

As right-wing parties gain ground across Europe, the Reform Party, which won 4.1 million votes, or 14 percent of the total, and five seats in parliament in July’s elections, is surging from around 40,000 members in early June to more than 80,000. The Labour Party has more than 350,000.

At a packed conference in the central English city of Birmingham, Farage was mobbed as he entered the hall, greeted by a crowd of around 4,000 mostly elderly and white supporters who stood to applaud and chant “Nigel” repeatedly.

“One in four of those who voted Labour in the general election on 4 July… said… they were already inclined to vote for Reform UK,” Farage told a cheering crowd after taking to the stage lit up by fireworks.

LABOUR GOVERNMENT CRITICISES

To boos from a lively crowd, Farage and other reformist lawmakers and supporters listed what they called the government’s failures, from limiting fuel payments to pensioners to early prisoner releases and pay deals with unions, which they described as Labour’s paymasters.

Labour says it has been forced to make tough decisions because of what it calls the disastrous legacy of the previous Conservative government, accusing it of leaving a £22bn black hole in the public finances and prisons ready to burst.

The group says it has reached a number of wage agreements in sectors including healthcare and transport to end strikes that were hampering growth.

Loved or loathed after playing a key role in winning the 2016 Brexit referendum to take Britain out of the European Union, Farage is no stranger to defying predictions, but he admitted there was still some way to go to professionalise his party.

Founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, and renamed the Reform Party three years later, it is run as a private company with Farage as the largest shareholder. He said that would now change: the party would be owned by its members and run as a non-profit organisation with a new constitution.

Party officials hope to mobilise more grassroots activists ahead of local elections next year to create a mass movement that will challenge the mainstream parties.

Immigration is the main concern and campaign issue of the Reform Party, which accuses both the former Conservative government and Starmer of having no plan to deal with the boats that bring asylum seekers to Britain. The Reform Party says it will stop these boats in the Channel and send them back to France.

Such views, including wanting citizens to adhere only to British culture, customs and traditions, have sparked allegations of racism, which the party denies.

“We have no room for a few extremists who could ruin the work of a party that now has 80,000 members and is growing by hundreds every day,” Farage said. “We represent the silent, decent majority of this great country we live in.”

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modification of the text.