Nigel Farage: My message to ConservatorHome readers: it's time to join the revolt

Nigel Farage is the leader of Reform UK and their potential parliamentary candidate in Clacton.

Even before announcing that I would stand in the general election, I predicted that the British Reform Party would get more votes than the Conservative Party on July 4.

After just two weeks of campaigning, I'm confident we'll get there – and I'm more confident than ever in my ability to lead the real opposition to the Labor government we all know is coming.

British politics reached a potential tipping point last week, when a major YouGov poll put Reformers ahead of the Conservatives. The response from Conservative leaders was to blame Reformers and me for misleading their voters.

But it's not my fault that support for conservatives is plummeting. They are responsible for their own problems.

Let me be clear, the Conservative vote would collapse even if I had chosen to spend the campaign somewhere on a sunny beach. All I did was offer voters a realistic alternative opposition.

I understand that this may be difficult for some readers of ConservativeHome to accept what is happening to the party they have supported for so long. I've also been a Conservative, and it was I who won Boris Johnson his overwhelming (and now squandered) majority by running in hundreds of seats in the last election.

But the hard truth is that after 14 years of government marked by numerous broken and broken promises under the leadership of four prime ministers, the Conservative Party is now a broken brand.

Has there ever been such a gap between a Conservative government and the millions of people who voted it into power? Has this government lived up to the name conservative any of them question, from immigration to taxation to education?

We all remember how Boris galvanized support by promising to deliver Brexit in 2019. Yet many disaffected Tory voters can see that we are still no closer to regaining control of our borders and laws than five years ago.

In particular, conservatives have failed to control legal or illegal immigration. Since 2018, more than 4,000 boats carrying more than 120,000 people have disembarked there. In the last three years alone, 3.5 million immigrants have arrived in the UK. Can any conservative seriously claim that this is what people voted for in 2019?

It is no wonder that many are looking for an alternative and turning to reform. We are now defeating the Conservatives in many parts of the country. And in what are often called the “Red Wall” seats, the former Labor strongholds won by Johnson in 2019, we are clearly ahead.

In desperation, Tory leaders have repeated hackneyed claims that voting for Reform is a wasted vote and that deserting the Tories means giving a blank check to Sir Keir Starmers' Labor government.

The reality, however, is that on July 5 we will see Starmer in Downing Street, regardless of who you vote for. The election is already over and Labor has won, albeit largely by default.

The real question we face today is: who will lead an effective opposition to Labor over the next five years?

In many seats, notably Red Wall, a vote for the conservatives would be really pointless; Surely the best way to give Starmer a blank check would be to believe that the Conservatives can form a coherent opposition.

The divided and directionless Conservative Party proved ineffective in government, even when it started with an 80-seat majority. After the Conservatives' heavy defeat next month, they look set to become even less powerful as a group of MPs in opposition.

It often seems that conservatives have spent more time fighting against each other over the past four years than fighting for the country's interests. Last week we saw Suella Braverman argue that the Tories should welcome me and unite the right, while David Cameron insisted I had no place in their party.

How can we trust the Conservative Party to unite and defend Britain, when they can't even agree on what to do about Nigel Farage?

I am confident that I can now be the voice of an opposition that will stand up to the Labor government and hold Starmer to account. I have been quite clear and consistent in what I stand for.

I'm not afraid of combat. I will not give in to pressure from Twitter or a crowd in the streets; I took on the European Union and the big banks. I am confident that I can now take on a Labor government which will have virtually no honeymoon period, which will inherit deep-seated problems and which is so clueless about how to run the country that its six key election promises don't say a word on immigration.

We need Reform MPs in Parliament to make our opposition count. We are on track to achieve this, building the resistance to ensure Britain under Labor is not a one-party state. My message to ConservativeHome readers is: come on, join the revolt. It's time.

Britain is broken; Britain needs reforms. You have been so disappointed with the Conservative Party that it is really time to find something – and someone – new that can unite the right. What do you have to lose?