Nigel Farage has told Reform UK members they must be ready for an early general election, following the resignation of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.
The Reform leader took to the stage for his keynote conference speech three hours earlier than planned after Rayner announced her resignation.
“We’re about to witness a big rift in the Labour Party,” he told cheering supporters, “I think there’s every chance now of a general election happening in 2027 and we must be ready for that moment.”
He announced the setting up of a new department to prepare for government, with former Reform chairman Zia Yusuf as head of policy.
He said Reform would “set out some serious cuts to the welfare budget” shortly and that if elected his party would “stop the boats within two weeks”, scrap “harmful, wasteful” net zero policies and make Britain safer with “zero tolerance policing”.
He revealed he was planning to have lunch with the Albanian prime minister to discuss possible migrant returns agreements.
But the speech was more about firing up the Reform troops than setting out policies, as he sought to capitalise on the party’s recent local election victories and consistent lead in the national opinion polls.
“We are all ships rising on a turquoise tide headed ever closer towards winning the next general election,” he told supporters, who had been summoned to the hall three hours earlier than expected over the Birmingham venue’s public address system.
In another surprise move, he broke off from his speech to introduce Nadine Dorries, who defected to Reform on Thursday, to make a brief speech.
The former Tory culture secretary, who like Farage is a veteran of the I’m A Celebrity jungle, and was greeted on stage by a fusillade from the glitter cannons.
She told the cheering crowd: “I feel for the first time in a number of years as though I’m at a conference and amongst people who share the same principles and values as I have always held.”
The glitzy event is on a much bigger scale than previous Reform gatherings, with thousands of activists and hundreds of corporate lobbyists.
Reform are seeking to bring elements of US political rallies to the conference and when he returned to the stage Farage did not hesitate to borrow a phrase from Donald Trump.
“Let’s make Britain great again – I’ve heard that phrase somewhere else before – but I agree with it,” he told the audience, before talking about the Cross of St George and Union flags that have “spontaneously” appeared on lamp posts across the country.
“What is going on out there is the British people are sticking two fingers up with every flag they place to an establishment that doesn’t believe in Britain.”
The speech was delivered without notes but had a few simple themes – the main one being that Britain was “in a very bad place” and that he – and Reform – were “the last chance the country’s got to get this country back on track”.
He hit back at claims that Reform was a “one man band” but said it had to more to prepare for power and to recruit people with experience in government.
“In order to get all these policies brought together under one roof – and it’s a massive workload – I’m going to ask Zia Yusuf, from this day, to be our head of policy to bring all of this together.
“I will, in the next few weeks, open up a new department within the party, leaning on the experience that Nadine (Dorries) and others have – and others will come.
“Others with experience will come. Don’t worry about that, and we will open a department for preparing for government so that when we win, we can hit the ground running.”
He ended with another rallying cry, telling Reform members: “All I can do is to promise you that I will give this everything,”
“No one cares more about the state of this country than I do,” he told them, and “I’m determined to do something about it.”
