REFORM UK leader Nigel Farage has said it is “extremely unlikely” that he will join the Conservative Party.
Asked if his aim was to take over the party, he told GB News’ Political Editor Christopher Hope: “There isn’t a Tory Party.
“There isn’t one. Suella Braverman wants to marry me politically, and David Cameron says you shouldn’t go near me, and Michael Heseltine thinks I’m Oswald Mosley - what Tory Party? I think it’s extremely unlikely.
“My ambition is for this party to establish a beachhead right into Parliament and to use that to build a mass movement over the course of the next five years.
“I don't think the Conservative Party will reform itself. There are people in there that are friends of mine, who I'm close to, I very much hope they come and join me….Suella and people like Jacob [Rees-Mogg], they're in the wrong party.”
He was asked for his response to the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ reaction to Reform UK’s manifesto, which said its sums “do not add up”.
Farage said: “And they've said that about the Labour manifesto, as well as the Conservative manifesto.
“This will be very difficult, for any established or establishment group, this is going to be difficult and I’ll tell you why.
“This is radical…Liz Truss didn't propose spending cuts. Here, we’re proposing enormous spending cuts to fund what we believe is going to be a huge boost to the economy.
“And huge emphases in here, by the way, on things like small business - five and a half million men and women out there running their own businesses, they hate government because no one's on their side.
“I think the most radical thing in here, I think the most exciting thing in here, and you mark my words, this will be popular within two or three years with everybody, is we have to lift the threshold at which people start paying tax from £12,500 to £20,000.
“Why? Make work pay. Those people trapped on benefits can suddenly go to work and genuinely be better off...
“So, number one, you get people off benefits and going back to work. Number two, those on low incomes will actually be better off, genuinely better off, and number three, you reduce the need for masses of unskilled migration.”
On stopping small boats crossing the Channel, he said: “Leave the ECHR, establish a law that says that no one who comes by this route will ever be given refugee status, and then, if you have to, pick them up and take them back for their own safety.”
