Nigel Farage demands to be involved in leaders’ general election event
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said he should be allowed into a political leaders’ event next week – and challenged Sir Keir Starmer to a head-to-head debate.
The parliamentary hopeful was speaking at an event in London, after a single poll put his party one percentage point above the Conservatives.
This is within the margin of error, and more than a dozen other polls have Reform behind the Tories in their most recent datasets – with support ranging from 9% to 17%.
Election latest: Reform passes Tories in poll
YouGov, the pollster Mr Farage was quoting, puts his party on 19% compared to the Conservative’s 18%.
The Sky News poll tracker, which collates all the results to provide an average, has Reform in third place.
In order, it has Labour on 42%, Conservatives on 21.8%, Reform on 14.3%, the Liberal Democrats on 10.4%, the Greens on 5.9% and the SNP on 3.1%.
Speaking on Friday lunchtime, Mr Farage made a “demand of right now” that “the BBC put us into that debate”.
He appeared to be speaking about a special episode of Question Time, set to take place on Thursday 20 June.
There is a one-on-one leadership debate the following week between Sir Keir and Rishi Sunak.
Mr Farage has already appeared in two seven-person leadership events – however, while smaller parties sent their respective leaders, Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems did not.
Mr Farage said: “I would also very much like to do a debate head-to-head with Keir Starmer and the reason is very simple – we think this should be the immigration election.”
In the same event, Mr Farage declared himself the “leader of the opposition” against Sir Keir, having said he believes Labour will form the next government and the Tories are “done”.
The former UKIP leader said he believed his party could win six million votes at the election – which works out to close to 19% of the valid votes cast in 2019.
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In 2019, the Conservatives won just under 14 million votes, Labour won around 10.3 million, the SNP won 1.2 million and the Liberal Democrats won 3.7 million.
However, it’s hard to say how many seats the six million could work out to due to the first past the post system – as shown by the fact the SNP won 48 seats in 2019 and the Liberal Democrats won 11.
Mr Farage is claiming he wants his party to build towards the next general election – which must take place by summer 2029.
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Nigel Farage speaking in London. Pic: PA
He said: “Remember, this is not a short-term commando raid, this is a five-year commitment. This election is our first step towards building for 2029.
“So, however many seats we win, you have my absolute assurance that our campaigning of the 29 election, our building of a big movement in this country, will begin the very next day on 5 July.
“If we did finish up with a huge number of votes and a paltry number of seats, do you know what it would do? It would tell us yet again that Britain is broken and Britain needs reform, and that reform includes the electoral system, that reform includes the abomination that is the House of Lords, and that reform includes the right, as people in Switzerland have, to call referendums on key issues if they think their government and parliament are out of touch with them.”
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Asked about his party’s financial situation, Mr Farage said Reform had raised “£2-3m in 25 quids” – but it needs to raise more and does “not have the ammunition that we need”.
The BBC and the Labour Party have been approached for comment.
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A Tory bid to launch a new national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal has been voted down by MPs amid criticism of “political game playing”.
MPs rejected the amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing Bill by 364 to 111, a majority of 253.
However, even if the Commons had supported the measure, it wouldn’t have actually forced the government to open the desired inquiry, due to parliamentary procedure.
Instead, it would have killed the government’s legislation, the aim of which is to reform things like the children’s care system and raise educational standards in schools.
Follow politics latest: Reaction to vote
Tonight’s vote was largely symbolic – aimed at putting pressure on Labour following days of headlines after comments by Elon Musk brought grooming gangs back into the spotlight.
The world’s richest man has hit out at Sir Keir Starmer and safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, after she rejected a new national inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, saying this should be done at a local level instead.
The Tories also previously said an Oldham inquiry should be done locally and in 2015 commissioned a seven-year national inquiry into child sex abuse, led by Professor Alexis Jay, which looked at grooming gangs.
However, they didn’t implement any of its recommendations while in office – and Sir Keir has vowed to do so instead of launching a fresh investigation into the subject.
Jess Phillips exclusive:
Victims can have inquiry if they want one
The division list showed no Labour MPs voted in favour of the Conservative amendment.
Those who backed the proposal include all of Reform’s five MPs and 101 Tory MPs – though some senior figures, including former prime minister Rishi Sunak and former home secretaries James Cleverly and Suella Braverman, were recorded as not voting.
The Liberal Democrats abstained.
Speaking to Sophy Ridge on the Politics Hub before the vote, education minister Stephen Morgan condemned “political game playing”.
“What we’re seeing from the Conservatives is a wrecking amendment which would basically allow this bill not to go any further,” he said.
“That’s political game playing and not what I think victims want. Victims want to see meaningful change.”
As well as the Jay review, a number of local inquiries were also carried out, including in Telford and Rotherham.
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Grooming gangs: What happened?
Speaking earlier in the day at PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer accused Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch of “jumping on the bandwagon” after Mr Musk’s intervention and spreading “lies and misinformation”.
Referring to her time in government as children’s and equalities minister, the prime minister said: “I can’t recall her once raising this issue in the House, once calling for a national inquiry.”
He also said having spoken to victims of grooming gangs this morning, “they were clear they want action now, not the delay of a further inquiry”.
Ms Badenoch has argued that the public will start to “worry about a cover-up” if the prime minister resists calls for a national inquiry, and said no one has yet “joined up the dots” on grooming.
Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns in England – including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford – over a decade ago in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013.
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