Nigel Farage may make political comeback, Reform UK leader suggests

Reform UK leader Richard Tice has refused to rule out Nigel Farage becoming the next leader of his party.

Mr Tice, who succeeded Mr Farage in March 2021, admitted the “more help Nigel can give, the better”.

He was asked about the fate of the former UKIP leader by Sophy Ridge on the Politics Hub as Mr Farage appears on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in Australia.

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According to Mr Tice, people are enjoying seeing “Nigel the individual” because he is “revealing his personality”.

“I hope he goes all the way in the programme,” he added.

Asked whether Mr Farage could make a comeback to lead Reform – formerly the Brexit Party – he replied: “I’m the leader, he’s made it very clear he doesn’t want to stand in a first-past-the-post election.

“We’re very pro-proportional representation. That’s the fairest way to conduct elections. But the more help Nigel can give, the better.”

Pressed again on whether that could mean Mr Farage taking over, Mr Tice said: “Let’s wait and see.”

He added: “The Tories are terrified of the progress of Reform UK.”

In 2020, the Brexit Party applied to change its name to Reform UK – admitting it was “time to redirect our energies”, which were later focused on opposing COVID lockdowns.

Mr Farage stood down as the leader of Reform a year later – saying his “life’s work” of securing the UK’s exit from the European Union had taken “the best part of three decades” but the time had come for him to step down.

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A YouGov poll earlier this month put Reform on 10% of the vote – tied with the Liberal Democrats – while the Tories stood at 21% and Labour 44%.

Mr Tice claimed that the Tories had “abandoned” Brexit as he criticised the latest net migration figure – a record-breaking 745,000 in 2022 – as “appalling”.

A Number 10 spokesperson admitted net migration “remains far too high” and said the government was “taking action to bring it down”.

He said the numbers were a “complete betrayal of what everybody who voted Conservative, voted for Brexit”.

“What we wanted, we were told and promised by the Conservative government, was that Brexit would take back control of our borders, that it would reduce immigration numbers below 200,000 a year.

“And instead, actually what’s happened is that they’ve at least trebled since then. We’ve now got people coming into the UK about the size of Birmingham every single year.”

Dismissing suggestions that Reform could do a deal with the Conservatives by standing aside in some seats as it did in the 2019 election, Mr Tice said: “I’ve made it very clear, very clear – zero deals with the Tories.

“We stand in every single seat. Democracy is better when people have got more options, more discussion, more debates.”