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Nigel Farage could “definitely” become prime minister at the next general election, Dominic Cummings has said.

The former Number 10 aide has advised the Reform UK leader on how to go from “one man and an iPhone” to entering Downing Street.

Listen to the full interview at 5pm on the Sky News Daily podcast – tap here to follow

The revelation came in a wide-ranging interview with Sky News, in which the controversial figure, who served as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser from 2019 to 2020, revealed details of a meeting between himself and Mr Farage.

Asked if Mr Farage could be prime minister, he said: “It could definitely happen now, yeah, because the old system’s just so completely broken.

“If he does what I’m suggesting, and actually sets out a path for how Reform is going to change, how Reform is going to bring in people, how it’s structurally going to alter, what it’s going to build, how it is going to do policy, how it can recruit MPs, etc.

“If he does that, then there’ll be a huge surge of interest and support into the whole thing.”

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Dominic Cumming's speaking to Sky's Liz Bates
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Dominic Cummings speaking to Sky’s Liz Bates

‘One man and an iPhone’

He added: “Reform has been a one-man band. It’s been Nigel and an iPhone.

“They can win 50, 100, 150 seats with Reform as Nigel and an iPhone.

“But they can’t win an overall general election and have a plan for government and have a serious team able to take over in Downing Street and govern and control Whitehall with one man and an iPhone.”

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‘Big cuts’ to fund Reform policies

However, Mr Cummings was also scathing about Mr Farage’s personal appeal, saying it was his party, not him, that had become an outlet for anti-establishment feeling.

“It’s not exactly correlated with what people think about Nigel himself.

“Reform is a vehicle for people to say: ‘We despise you, Westminster. We hate both the old parties, we hate Whitehall, we hate the old media, we hate the whole f***ing lot of you.’

“And Farage going up in the polls is the expression of that core feeling.”

Read more from Sky News:
Farage: Abortion law ‘totally out of date’
Ministers could scrap two-child benefit cap
IMF upgrades UK economic growth forecast

Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, pictured in Downing Street in 2019.
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Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, pictured in Downing Street in 2019. Pic: PA

Badenoch ‘probably going to go this year’

The ex-Downing Street aide was also damning about the Conservative Party, declaring it might be “dead”.

“It’s quite possible the Tories have just, kind of, crossed the event horizon and actually aren’t salvageable,” he said.

“Like, everyone sort of assumes that because they’ve always been around, then somehow there must be at least one last chance for them to turn things around, but it’s possible that chance is in their past and doesn’t exist.

“It might be dead.”

Kemi Badenoch speaks to pupils during a visit to Ashcroft Technology Academy.
Pic: PA
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Kemi Badenoch only took over as Tory leader late last year. Pic: PA

He also predicted the party’s current leader, Kemi Badenoch, would be ousted before the end of the year and claimed plots to remove her are already under way.

“Kemi is going to go probably this year,” he said.

“There’s already people who are organising to get rid of her, and I think that that will work. If it doesn’t work this year, it will definitely happen after next May.

“She’s a goner, so there’s going to be a big transition there”.

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Starmer ran the gauntlet with Trump but just about emerged intact

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Starmer ran the gauntlet with Trump but just about emerged intact

When TV cameras are let in to film world leaders meeting in person, the resulting footage is usually incredibly boring for journalists and incredibly safe for politicians.

Not with Donald Trump.

Sir Keir Starmer ran the gauntlet on Monday.

Trump latest: President treats PM to a ride on Air Force One

Put through a total of almost 90 minutes of televised questioning alongside the American leader, it was his diciest encounter with the president yet.

But he still just about emerged intact.

For a start, he can claim substantive policy wins after Trump announced extra pressure on Vladimir Putin to negotiate a ceasefire and dialled up the concern over the devastating scenes coming from Gaza.

More on Donald Trump

There were awkward moments aplenty though.

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Trump calls London mayor a ‘nasty person’

Top of the list is Mr Trump’s trashing of the prime minister’s Labour colleague, London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan.

But more important than that, Monday’s meeting was the clearest representation of the political gulf that separates the two leaders.

“He’s slightly more liberal than me,” Mr Trump said of Sir Keir when he arrived in Scotland.

What an understatement.

Read more:
Trump reignites row with Sir Sadiq Khan

EU leaders resigned to US trade deal

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain. Christopher Furlong/Pool via REUTERS
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The two leaders held talks in front of the media. Pic: Reuters

On green energy, immigration, taxation and online regulation, the differences were clear to see.

Sir Keir just about managed to paper over the cracks by chuckling at times, choosing his interventions carefully and always attempting to sound eminently reasonable.

At times, it had the energy of a man being forced to grin and bear inappropriate comments from his in-laws at an important family dinner.

But hey, it stopped a full Trump implosion – so I suppose that’s a win.

My main takeaway from this Scotland visit though is not so much the political gulf present between the two men, but the gulf in power.

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Trump gives Putin new deadline to end war

Sir Keir flew the length of the country he leads to be the guest at the visiting president’s resort.

He was then forced to sit through more than an hour of uncontrolled, freewheeling questioning from a man most of his party and voters despise, during which he was offered unsolicited advice on how to beat Nigel Farage and criticised (albeit indirectly) on key planks of his government’s policy platform.

In return he got warm words about him (and his wife) and relatively incremental announcements on two foreign policy priorities.

So why does he do it?

Because, to borrow a quote from a popular American political TV series: “Air Force One is a big plane and it makes a hell of a noise when it lands on your head.”

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Big brands are sleepwalking when it comes to stablecoins

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Big brands are sleepwalking when it comes to stablecoins

Big brands are sleepwalking when it comes to stablecoins

With Amazon and Walmart exploring stablecoins, institutions may be underestimating potential exposure of customer data on blockchains, posing risks to privacy and brand trust.

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ECB adviser doubts digital euro can match US dollar stablecoins

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ECB adviser doubts digital euro can match US dollar stablecoins

ECB adviser doubts digital euro can match US dollar stablecoins

The European Central Bank may rely on regulated euro stablecoins and private innovation to counter the dominance of US dollar stablecoins, says adviser Jürgen Schaaf.

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