Live at 2 p.m, follows a row with Sky News.
Nigel Farage, writing on his Substack:
“Starmer isn’t the first Prime Minister I’ve deposed, and he won’t be the last. David Cameron. Theresa May. Rishi Sunak. And next up – Andy Burnham. The reason each leader has failed is the same.
“What the political class fails to understand is that the electorate won’t accept being taken for fools. They cannot continue to take the votes of the people who supported them for granted, only to betray them upon having gained power. Politics is about trust.
“That is why I am calling for a general election at the soonest possible date. You know as well as I do that the country cannot afford to waste another week drifting from crisis to crisis. That’s why millions of you turned out in the local elections to vote for Reform councillors, and it’s why we have led in more than 300 opinion polls for well over a year.”
Team Burnham has been rejecting calls for an early election. Guido still wouldn’t rule it out…
He’s promising to announce “new policies to give the self-employed a break“. Watch along above…
UPDATE: Farage announces Reform will raise the VAT threshold to £150,000.
Nigel Farage is pitching to the unions. Speaking to The Times, the Reform leader has invited Britain’s trade unions to sever their century-old ties with Labour and affiliate to his party instead. Labour’s relationship with its former paymasters is in the gutter, so why not…
Farage is promising for steelworkers stung by the British Steel pensions scandal, protected maternity pay, and an “open door” at every Reform-run council. There is also a conference invitation for September…
A JL Partners poll last week found union members split evenly between the two parties, with Unite and GMB members leaning his way. A nifty stunt to pull just nine days before the Makerfield by-election…
So far GMB boss Gary Smith has poured cold water on any affiliation, telling Times Radio on Sunday that Reform is “no friend of trade unionists“. Polling of his members tells a different story, so it might be time to check in with his own comrades before making any big decisions. Eleven unions have backed Labour since 1900. Persuading even one to defect would be a genuine realignment – but good luck getting past the communist union barons at the top…
The usual squawking from all the non-entity MPs sitting around Farage who know they’re on camera when he’s speaking…
Lee Anderson, speaking to The Sun’s Tom Scotson, reveals the wokest thing he’s ever done: “I once had a vegetarian thought, about becoming a vegetarian. That was quickly dismissed when I had a bacon sandwich…”