Farage aims for backdoor takeover of Conservative party
After being named as the leader of the party on Monday, Mr Farage said a “chunk of the Conservatives” could join his party, and that he would be a ‘bloody nuisance’ in Westminster if elected.
He compared the situation to Canadian politics, where “Reform did a reverse takeover of the Conservative Party, rebranded it and Stephen Harper – who was elected as a Reform MP – became the Canadian prime minister for 10 years”.
He said: “I don’t want to join the Conservative Party, I think the better thing to do would be to take it over.”
It comes after new MRP polling found the Conservatives would be reduced to just 140 seats if the election were held today.
With Reform’s rise in prominence came, perhaps unsurprisingly, a renewed focus on immigration on the media rounds and the campaign trail.
The Conservatives yesterday announced a new annual cap on visas - set by the Migration Advisory Committee - which would then decrease yearly over the course of the parliament.
Sir Keir Starmer has dismissed Rishi Sunak’s plans for a cap, saying the Conservatives were just “hoping for the best” in efforts to cut net migration.
The Labour leader told reporters in Bolton: “Net migration is far too high, this Government has lost control. It’s more than twice as high as it was when we were in the EU, that’s the irony of it.
“This Prime Minister is actually, for all his tough talk, the most liberal prime minister when it comes to immigration, those numbers have gone through the roof.”
Sir Keir declined to guarantee numbers would come down under Labour but said: “They need to come down, we’ve got a plan to bring them down.
“But you can’t wish them down, that’s what the Tories are doing. They are just plucking numbers and wishing and hoping for the best.”
Labour would tackle “bad bosses” using migrant labour to undercut standards and boost skills to get Britons into work, he suggested.
Meanwhile, addressing a rally at Clacton Pier, Mr Farage hit out at the Tories over the handling of Brexit: “We made an offer to the British people, we could get back our independence and control of our borders.
“But what has happened? The Conservatives have betrayed that trust. They’ve opened up the borders to mass immigration like we’ve never seen before.
“And they deserve to pay a price for that, a big price for that.”
Earlier in the day, on the Today programme, he said the UK should be aiming for ‘net zero’ migration.
Farage was asked if people eligible for skilled workers visas, including paramedics and primary school teachers, could continue to come in. He said they could but in limited numbers.
The Reform UK party leader said: “We cannot go on as we are. We have to limit numbers. If that means in some sectors there’d be shortages – what that then means is that wages woud then go up and we would start to encourage people to learn skills, rather than heading off to university and doing social sciences.”