Nigel Farage says Conservative Party trying to ‘copy’ Reform UK

The former Ukip leader added the Tories have become ‘a social democrat party in all but name’ (Picture: Getty/Reuters)

The former leader of Ukip has accused the Conservative government of copying the rhetoric ‘but not the actions’ of his new party.

Nigel Farage’s comments came at the opening of a Reform UK conference focused on Brexit and immigration. 

Both Farage and Richard Tice, leader of the new party, have sought to portray Reform UK as a refuge for hardline Brexiteers disillusioned with the Conservative government’s delivery on the 2016 decision to leave the EU. 

Farage told PA news agency: ‘A lot of the arguments that we’re making, arguments on the cost of net zero, arguments on what is happening in the English channel, for example, have been noticed, and the rhetoric was very much copied by the Conservatives over the course of the last couple of weeks, but not the actions.’

Reform UK has never had any representatives elected to the House of Commons and also returned poor results at local elections in May, during which it failed to gain any seats despite having fielded nearly 500 candidates. 

Speaking at the recent party conference, Richard Tice sought to drum up support for opposition to the government’s climate and border policies, saying his party was aiming for ‘net zero’ on immigration rather than emissions. 

In apparent reference to the arrival of vulnerable migrants on small boats via the English channel, Rice said: ‘Let’s pick up, let’s take back to France, and then show the EU leaders this is what they need to do in the Mediterranean.

Founding member and former Reform Party leader, Nigel Farage, made the comments at the Reform Party annual conference today in London (Picture: Getty)

Reform UK has ruled out standing aside to allow the Conservatives to gain more seats at the next general election, as it did in 2019 under the title of the Brexit party (Picture: Reuters)

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‘Only then will this crisis, this hurricane of migration that Suella Braverman talked about, only then will it be stopped.’

His comments alluded to the Home Secretary’s speech at the Tory Party conference last week, a source of much controversy, in which Braverman spoke of an incoming ‘hurricane’ of mass migration.

Farage also sought to liken Reform UK’s present position to that of Ukip in 2012, saying ‘this party has been bubbling away quietly just under the radar’ and adding that there was ‘a gap in the political market’ for them to capitalise on at the next general election.

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