𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It was a dreary day in Newport, but the atmosphere at the press conference was lively with songs, including Eric Prydz’s Call on Me playing as the audience waited for Mr Farage to take to the stage. After he was given an enthusiastic welcome by the party faithful, the Clacton MP joked that he would “wager it’s better than the reception Keir Starmer’s going to get the next time he speaks anywhere frankly”.

Describing the Lord Mandelson row as “the biggest scandal in British politics for over one century”, he predicted that the PM’s chief of staff would be gone and that Sir Keir would not be far behind after the May elections.

Mr Farage also denied that the saga would benefit the Tories after Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch used PMQs to force Sir Keir to admit that he knew of Lord Mandelson’s association with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him as US ambassador.

He insisted the public associates the Conservatives with “years and years of sleaze, of infighting and of a never-ending psychodrama”.

The press conference comes just three months before the May elections, where Wales is a key target for Reform.

Labour is set to lose power in the nation for the first time in history unless the polls are spectacularly wrong in what could be the final nail in the coffin for the crisis-hit Prime Minister if he is not forced out of 10 Downing Street before then.