Nigel Farage claims Reform UK will get MORE votes than the Tories at the election as leader Richard Tice turns sights on ‘woke’ Labour with pledge to scrap Net Zero – and begs party candidates to stop boozy posts on social media following ‘racism’ row

Nigel Farage today predicted his Reform UK party would get more votes than the ‘doomed’ Tories at the general election.

The ex-UKIP leader, now Reform’s honorary president, claimed ‘in terms of numbers’ the insurgent party would be backed by more voters than the Conservatives.

Mr Farage has yet to reveal whether he will return to frontline politics to lead Reform’s general election campaign.

But he said the party could overtake the Tories ‘with or without me’ and quipped that even Winston Churchill coming back as Conservative leader would not save them.

Mr Farage made the comments shortly after Richard Tice, who is currently Reform’s leader, used a Westminster press conference to set his sights on ‘woke‘ Labour.

Mr Tice set out Reform’s plans to scrap Britain’s push for Net Zero and to instead use saved money to boost the NHS and cut waiting lists.

But he was also forced to issue a warning for Reform’s general election candidates to not use social media after drinking alcohol.

Reform has ditched seven candidates following complaints about their social media posts, including derogatory comments about Muslims and black people.

Speaking at a Telegraph Q&A event this afternoon, Mr Farage despaired at how the Tories had ‘blown’ the 80-seat majority they won at the 2019 general election.

Before that election, Mr Farage’s Brexit Party – the predecessor of Reform – agreed not to stand in Conservative-held seats.

‘Eighty-seat majority, the world at their feet. I helped them do it and look what they’ve done with it,’ Mr Farage said today.

‘I think Reform will get, with or without me, more votes than the Conservatives at the next election, in terms of numbers.

‘How that transpires in seats is absolutely anybody’s guess. But I can see the momentum.’

Mr Farage predicted next month’s local elections would be a ‘disaster’ for the Tories, with the council contests followed by a leadership challenge against PM Rishi Sunak.

‘There’ll be a leadership contest, Rishi will win, he’ll limp on… There is no good news coming for the Conservatives,’ he added.

Mr Farage has recently flirted with a return to the Conservatives, a party he quit more than 30 years ago following the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

But, asked who in the current Conservative Party he might be able to work with as a future Tory leader, he said: ‘Pass. It’s done.

‘It doesn’t matter who they choose as leader, until the party splits or reforms and decides what it is, it doesn’t matter a damn who the leader is.

‘There is no underlying philosophy that unites Conservatives and a lot of this we can put down to [George] Osborne and [David] Cameron who fundamentally changed the party from 2010 onwards.

‘Who took it down the route of being social democrats, who wanted the Guardian leader writers to like them. God knows why, but they did.

‘And then Boris blowing an 80-seat majority. If Winston Churchill came back, they still are doomed at the next election.’

At an earlier press conference, Mr Tice targeted Labour as he set out Reform’s pitch for voters in ‘Red Wall’ seats at the general election.

The Reform leader said: ‘We are now actually polling the highest amongst Brexiteers across the whole of the UK.

‘We’re above the Tories in the North, equal in the Midlands, so we’re making huge strides.’

Mr Tice said the country was ‘completely and utterly broken’ after 14 years of Tory rule.

But he accused Labour of betraying working-class voters in favour of a ‘woke’ agenda.

‘That’s the reality of what they’re doing,’ he added. ‘They no longer care, they have no plans, they have no solutions.

‘All they’re focused on, frankly, are the woke, managerial middle class who happen to be eco-zealots.’

Mr Tice also set out his party’s plans to halt the country’s drive for Net Zero and to instead use taxpayers’ cash to boost the NHS.

He said Reform had estimated that the cost of the Net Zero ambition would be about £30billion a year.

He said: ‘We have a choice in this country, it seems to me. A pretty clear choice.

‘Do we want zero waiting lists in two years and to keep them there, that is the Reform choice. Or do we want Net Zero CO2 emissions in 25 years? That is the Labour choice.’

Mr Tice was forced to warn his party’s candidates not to use social media after drinking alcohol to avoid posting ‘inappropriate’ comments.

He said every party has its share of ‘morons’ but added that he is committed to kicking them out quickly.

‘We’re very clear to all our candidates – for heaven’s sake if you’re going to have a glass on a Friday night then don’t use social media,’ the Reform leader said.

‘It’s not sensible, if someone lets us down hereafter, then, frankly, if it is inappropriate, if it is unacceptable, then we’re going to part company.

‘So you can have your freedom of speech, your freedom of expression, that doesn’t mean you have the right to represent Reform UK as a parliamentary candidate, because that’s our choice.’

Campaign group Hope Not Hate found tweets by candidates Jonathan Kay and Mick Greenhough in which they made derogatory comments about Muslims and black people.

Mr Kay, who was standing for election in South Ribble, tweeted in 2019 that Muslims ‘never coexist with others’ and should be deported, and claimed Africans have IQs ‘among the lowest in the world’.

Mr Greenhough, who was the Reform candidate in Orpington, tweeted in 2023 that ‘the only solution’ is to ‘remove the Muslims from our territory’ and in 2019 said Ashkenazi Jews are a ‘problem’ and have ’caused the world massive misery’.

Hope Not Hate, which campaigns against the far right, said the pair are ‘wildly unsuitable for public office’.

Both men were removed as Reform candidates, following the publication of Hope Not Hate’s findings last week.