Brexit leader Nigel Farage has outlined his ambition to become Prime Minister in 2029, using the July 4 snap election to “establish [a] bridgehead in Parliament” and build a national movement for “genuine change” over the next five years. When the BBC asked if Farage believes he can become Prime Minister by 2029, he replied, “Yes, absolutely.”
He elaborated, saying, “The disconnect between the Labour and Conservative, Westminster-based parties and the country, the thoughts, hopes, and aspirations of ordinary people, are so far apart from where our politics is. And the funny thing is they show no signs of changing.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has put forward Penny Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons, as his representative in multiple seven-way debates featuring Sunak’s Conservatives, the Labour Party opposition, and Britain’s major third parties, including Reform. Farage commented that Mordaunt and Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner “sounded the same” during these debates, noting there are “no real, fundamental differences between” Labour and the Conservatives.
Mordaunt, firmly on the left of the Conservative Party, recently published a Bill Gates-endorsed book praising Black Lives Matter and railing against “white privilege” and “transphobia.” She also criticizes British leaders of the past for being too “long-term, male, patient, predictable, factual, planned, heterosexual, white, Christian, Western” in their thinking. Sunak’s elevation and promotion of her as a possible successor suggest the Conservatives are not abandoning their center-left politics.
POLLS.
Farage’s Reform Party is currently polling ahead of the Conservatives, with Farage projected to win the parliamentary constituency of Clacton.
He believes he can force a merger between Reform and the Conservatives by outcompeting the establishment party on the right. He cites the precedent set by Stephen Harper in Canada, whose Reform Party outcompeted the Progressive Conservative Party. This led to a Unite the Right movement, merging the two parties under Harper’s leadership.
Harper went on to win two terms as Prime Minister.