Inside Nigel Farage’s mission destroy the Tories and become Prime Minister within 5 years
NIGEL Farage and Jeremy Corbyn aren’t exactly political best mates.
Nigel wants to slash net migration to zero. Hates the ‘green crap’. And enjoys a pint and a cheeky fag down the local boozer.
Jeremy is a red-blooded socialist. He preaches open borders. And is more likely to be found eating cold baked beans out of a can than sipping on an ale.
But as Nigel polishes off his full English at a breakfast with veterans in Clacton on Tuesday morning, it is Corbyn he compares himself to.
“Something out there is happening”, he tells me.
“I think Jeremy Corbyn had a bit of that in 2017. There are similarities to the Brexit referendum in 2016.
“There are millions of people out there considering voting for us.
“It is bigger than the Brexit Party at its peak. It feels like momentum is building. Like a buzz.”
The Sun joined Mr Farage and his team out on the campaign trail in Clacton, the Essex seaside town where he is running to be a Reform UK MP.
His party is surging in the polls – beating the Tories to nab second place behind Labour, according to bombshell YouGov survey.
A gleeful Nigel says he will be PM within five years.
Out on the stump in Clacton, he is promising nothing short of revolution.
Britain is “broken”. Reform UK is raising a “People’s Army” to fix it, he tells locals.
And the Tories?
They are “doomed” and he will never join the party, Mr Farage says.
He predicts that up to 50 Tory MPs on the right will quit and join him after the election.
“Amongst that wing – and a lot of them are very prominent people who are very well known people – there is a feeling that at some point we will have to be in the same party”, Nigel says.
Singling out Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg, he adds: “The centre of gravity of the Tory party High Command is so far away from me it is not true. So far away from Suella it is not true. So far away from Jacob it is not true.
“I’m looking to reshape the future of British politics.”
Senior Tories have queued up to stick the boot into Nigel.
Michael Gove called him a “Chuckle Brother” – fine for a laugh down the pub but not a PM in waiting.
Economists have mocked his manifesto, saying the sums don’t add up.
But at the veterans breakfast at the sea cadets hall in Clacton, people like him.
And they don’t like many politicians. Well, pretty much none actually – that’s the problem.
Geoff Osborne, 75, an ex royal marine, said: “There is not one politician telling the truth out there. They are all liars.
“I’ll vote for Nigel. He tells the truth.”
Asked what he wants politicians to change about Britain, it’s not immigration but potholes that tops his list.
“The state of the roads in this country are third world.
“We are going to give it another year living here, and if it doesn’t improve we are going back to our villa in Spain.”
Roy Walker, 80, served in the Navy and is the president of the Clacton sea cadets.
He said: “Clacton used to be brilliant. People would come here for the shopping as well as the seaside.
“We haven’t got any shops now. They’ve all gone. M&S moved out. All we have are charity shops and pound shops.”
He is also going to vote Nigel on July 4.
Down at Clacton’s famous pier there is a similar, anti establishment feeling.
Here – amid the whirring arcades, giant ferris wheel and colourful sweet stands selling striped sticks of rocks – is a heavy whiff of anger at politicians.
Cheryl Williams, 62, is retired but works a couple of days a week at Tubby Isaac’s seafood stall next to the big wheel.
She says: “Nigel is saying all the right things but the biggest issue is if we can’t trust any of them
“I think the country needs a good shake up.
I will probably vote for Nigel to be fair. I liked Margaret Thatcher. In the 1980s she turned around a lot.”
Rishi Sunak is “clever” but lacks the “get up and go” the country needs, she said.
Her verdict on Keir Starmer is more brutal.
“I don’t think about him at all”, she said.
“I don’t know what he or Labour stands for anymore.”
It’s this anger with “the elite” that Nigel is banking on to get him over the line in Clacton.
And it’s that fire and fury he tries to kindle on stage that evening, when he is up at his first big rally Q&A in the Princes Theatre in Clacton.
It seats 820 and it’s pretty much full.
It is also bang opposite the constituency office of the sitting Tory MP Giles Watling, which lies closed and shuttered for the night.
As the auditorium fills up the lights dim and the music kicks in.
Nigel receives a rockstar welcome as he walks out to the Eminem song Without Me – picked, no doubt, for its chorus “guess who’s back, back again…”
Onstage there are fireworks. Quite literally. Two 20 foot indoor silver fountains greet his arrival
In a tub-thumping speech, he rails against the state of the NHS, brands the small boats crisis a “national security threat” and lays into the Tories.
Ever the showman, Nigel gets the crowd to join in with his indignation and mockery.
When he mentions a Labour majority, there are pantomime boos from the crowd.
When he mocks David Cameron – or “Call me Dave” as Nigel dubs him – there is laughter.
When he mentions Rishi “slippery” Sunak, there is applause.
It’s worth noting that many in the audience are lifelong Tory voters.
Ending on an insurrectionary note, he thunders: “I’m a fighter. I’m a warrior. I’m not afraid of anything!
“Our country needs radical surgery… but I can’t do it unless you help me. Will you help me?”
The crowd cheers, wave their placards and stick their hands in the air to say yes. One person wolf-whistles
Nigel has done what he came here to do – stir up a political insurgency.
The only question now is will his ‘People’s Army’ win the battle of that ballot box.