Reform UK ‘closing in fast’ on HUGE milestone as Nigel Farage’s party enjoys boost from ‘repudiation’ of Kemi Badenoch

He expects them to overtake the Tories in just weeks with regard to the number of members, and he is also expecting them to reach 100,000 sign-ups very soon.

“We just had a massive weekend for new member sign-ups, the best weekend that we’ve had as a party since the party conference when obviously that was a ridiculous time because we were streaming to millions of people”, he said.

“I think it’s quite clear that his is a repudiation of the new leader of the Conservative Party leader. My phone has blown up today from lots of members of the Conservative Party who are despondent and disillusioned.

“They can see the One Nation wets have now gotten decisive control of the party and what I’d say is, the Tory brand is broken. I think it’s really clear.”

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He added: “I think it’s really clear now the British people are sick and tired of the Tories.

“In stark contrast, Reform is surging. Like most things in politics, the reality is trajectory and momentum are far more important than absolute position.

“We’re closing in. I can tell you exclusively on GB News we’re through 95,000. We’re closing in fast on 100,000 members.

“To put this into context, a year ago we had 15,000 members. That’s a sixfold increase inside a year where the Tory Party membership, which they don’t disclose publicly, but there’s a lot of well-source publication that have that figure continuing to spiral downward very rapidly.”

Badenoch used a speech following her victory over Robert Jenrick on Saturday to say the Conservatives need to be “honest” about the mistakes they made in government.

But on Sunday she declined to be drawn into a “post-mortem” examination of each of her predecessors.

She did, however, criticise the previous government’s tax-raising measures as well as its borrowing habits.

She said: “I think the tax burden was too high under the Conservatives.

“That doesn’t mean that we have to cut public services, it means that we have to look at how we are delivering public services, and a lot of what government does is not even public services.”