Nigel Farage has compared Reform UK’s rise in the polls with Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the US, as the party squared up to the Tories with a rally in Kemi Badenoch’s constituency.
The North West Essex rally, which heard speeches from four of Reform’s five MPs, follows a spat between Conservative Party leader Mrs Badenoch and Mr Farage over party membership figures during the Christmas period.
Mr Farage told Reform members at the rally that the Tories “should be bloody scared of you” as he spoke about the argument with Mrs Badenoch.
The rally comes as polling suggests the party has pulled level with, and possibly overtaken, the Conservatives.
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A Techne UK poll has put Reform in second place with 24%, one point ahead of the Conservatives on 23% and two points behind first-placed Labour on 26%.
On the polling bump, Mr Farage told the audience: “I think also we’re beginning to see a wave that is crossing the Atlantic from the east coast of America, where Donald Trump, standing on a platform many of whose policies were not dissimilar to what we put to the British people in that contract last July, has won this incredible victory and got off to the most amazing start.
“And even those people that don’t like him say, you know what? He gets things done.”
The Reform leader added: “People look at us and say ‘like Trump these people will get things done’, and believe me, we will.
“This is not just going to be an earthquake in British politics. This is going to be the biggest historical political change this country has ever seen.”
Kemi Badenoch with farmer Richard Davenport as she feeds calves during a visit to Top O The Town Farm in Broomhall near Nantwich, Cheshire (Peter Byrne/PA
In late December, Mrs Badenoch had disputed Reform’s claim that its membership had overtaken that of the Conservatives, accusing Mr Farage of “fakery”.
Reform strongly denied the accusation and said it was considering legal action.
At the rally, Mr Farage dismissed the prospect of a legal battle, and said the “next best thing was to come and visit and meet my fake members in the North West Essex constituency”.
“You don’t look very fake to me. You look very real, and I tell you what, the Opposition should be bloody scared of you,” he added.
Mr Farage also conceded the vetting of candidates for Reform UK had been “probably quite near a catastrophe” in the past, after several were dropped for making sexist remarks and using racial slurs.
Ahead of the rally, Mrs Badenoch dismissed Reform UK as a “protest party”.
She told broadcasters she was “not at all” worried about Reform’s presence in her patch, adding that talking about Labour’s farming policy was “much more important than having a rally about myself”.
Asked about the polling numbers on a visit to a farm in Cheshire, Mrs Badenoch said it was “not a surprise that at the moment protest parties are gaining in the polls”.