Nigel Farage’s plan to ‘humiliate’ Keir Starmer so the PM ‘can’t hold on any longer’ | Politics | News
Nigel Farage has set his targets on Keir Starmer. (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage told disillusioned voters Keir Starmer “has to go” as he targets Labour’s historic heartlands. The Reform UK leader said a ballot box “humiliation” for the Prime Minister will make it “virtually impossible for him to hang on” any longer.
And Mr Farage revealed the party is going toe-to-toe with Labour in the party’s strongholds in North West and North East England. The frontrunner in the opinion polls is urging voters to treat May 7’s local elections as a referendum on the Prime Minister, branding him the “most unpopular” in history.
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The Brexit champion pointed to the winter fuel allowance fiasco and “tax raids on the elderly” for Labour’s plummeting popularity.
Pollsters have warned Labour is facing a “very substantial threat” as it loses voters to Reform on the right and the Greens to the left.
Unveiling Reform’s new slogan for the local elections, “Vote Reform, get Starmer out”, Mr Farage told the Daily Express: “Basically, if Labour suffer a humiliation in England, Wales and Scotland, it’ll be virtually impossible for him to hang on until the end of May.”
Asked if Sir Keir’s successor could be even worse for Britain, the Reform UK leader said: “There’s always danger.
“This is the most unpopular Prime Minister in living memory, the most unpatriotic Prime Minister in history; he just has to go.
“He constantly breaks promises, doing stuff that was never in the manifesto, such as tax raids on the elderly, the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance; he just does not deserve to be in that position.
“Voting to get rid of him is a big incentive, and let’s face it, in England, Scotland and Wales, the only party that can conclusively beat him is Reform. The Conservatives are just not in this race.”
Labour is widely expected to come third in the Welsh Senedd, which the party has controlled since its creation, and to lose to the Scottish National Party north of the border.
Labour also holds a majority of the roughly 5,000 seats on borough, district and county councils being contested across England
And Mr Farage told the Express: “I’m in the North of England today, I’m in a borough council today that Labour have 60% of all the seats and whether it is here in Lancashire, whether it is in the traditional heartlands of the North East, or the valleys of South Wales, you know, these are places they have held rock-solid for over 100 years.
“So the fact that Reform is taking on Labour in its historic heartlands is deeply significant at every level.
“Clearly, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are different electorates, but you know, the Tories tried in the case of those three councils to delay elections for two years in a row. They connived with a Labour Government to deny people their vote two years in a row, and only our legal action changed that.
“That gives us a bit of a head start, I would say, and they may be different electorates, but their concerns are the same. It’s about the economic, social, moral decline of the country – a nation losing a sense of what it is, about mass migration changing places beyond recognition.”
The latest YouGov poll, published on Wednesday, had Reform polling on 24%, five points ahead of the Conservatives.
Labour is struggling on just 16%, tied with the Greens.
But a More in Common poll suggested Nigel Farage’s party was polling at 30%, 10 points ahead of Labour.
Reform UK are unveiling a new slogan calling for voters to boot Starmer out (Image: Reform UK)
A year ago, Mr Farage said his party had to show they could be trusted.
Reform then won nine councils by promising to slash waste, including net zero projects and diversity schemes, to keep council tax bills low.
Party officials said the average increase for the coming financial year across those authorities will be 3.94pc, close to the level of inflation.
In contrast, they said Labour councils are set to raise tax by an average of 4.71pc, Tory councils by 4.9pc and Lib Dem ones by 5.49pc.
And Mr Farage believes his council chiefs have demonstrated the party can deliver. “There’s never been more scrutiny on Local Government. I would say in the 10 majority councils that we run, we’ve managed to save £300 million in excessive expenditure, we’ve kept council tax rises lower than the other parties. I would say one year in, we are off to a good start.”
