Nigel Farage risks “embarrassment” as he weighs up role in Reform UK’s “doomed” election campaign, former Ukip insiders have claimed.
Reform UK leader Richard Tice confirmed the populist party will stand candidates across all 632 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales.
Nigel Farage arrives in Ramsgate for a walk about on June 13, 2016
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Suzanne Evans, who served as Ukip’s deputy chair under Farage, told GB News: “This blanket approach of standing candidates in every seat is doomed to failure. It creates two issues. The first is candidate selection. How do they vet candidates and be absolutely sure there are no skeletons that aren’t going to come out? That was always a problem Ukip had.
“The other thing is they have a shortage of resources to fight campaigns in those seats. I am betting Reform has got no canvassing data, it hasn’t got enough people to collect canvassing data, it won’t have a knocking-up strategy.
“I think they’re up against a massive brick wall if they are seriously going to stand a candidate in every seat rather than selecting target seats with exceptional candidates where they might do well. It rather suggests to me that they don’t want to win seats, they just want to destroy the Tories.”
A former Ukip source also said: “They don’t seem to be targeting any seats. They don’t seem to be opening any offices or recruiting. If I was them, looking ahead to a general election, I’d be recruiting the best in the business, just like Ukip used to.
“If they won seats I’d be very, very shocked. Ukip won Clacton off the back of several reasons. That was the same for Mark Reckless in Rochester & Strood. If Nigel went full pelt then maybe they’d pick up a handful of seats at best. But that would need Nigel, Aaron Banks and a full-on operation. Is that happening at the moment? No.”
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Tim Aker, who missed out on winning in Thurrock in 2015 by just 974 votes, echoed concerns about Reform UK’s ground game.
He told GB News: “It’s tough for Reform because Ukip had quite an established local Government base but Reform, especially as the Brexit Party, have a long-leading time of brand recognition and celebrity wow-factor.”
Aker added: “You need a massive ground game but this comes back to the councillors.”
Reform UK is currently represented by just 11 local councillors, down from 202 in Ukip’s pomp.
Populist parties have struggled to make their mark in elections to the House of Commons, with Ukip’s main successes coming with two by-election victories in 2014.
Despite receiving 12.6 per cent of the vote in the 2015 General Election, Ukip were unable to return more than one MP to Westminster.
Farage, who already unsuccessfully stood for Parliament seven times, is “unlikely” to stand as a candidate himself.
However, former No10 pollster James Johnson argued that 2024 could yet be the best opportunity for Farage to enter the House of Commons.
Johnson also suggested Rishi Sunak could look to squeeze Reform UK’s vote ahead of polling day.
Addressing how the campaign could impact current polling, he told GB News: “I think the Conservatives will take about the risk of Keir Starmer, and some of those Reform switchers will come back on board.
“But I still think that even at five per cent it is going to be enough to take some votes from the Tories in a lot of their key seats. Is it greater if Farage is on the ticket? Of course, it is. But even with Richard Tice, as it currently stands, I think they will have an impact on the Conservative vote.”
The Prime Minister has already come out to urge voters to side with the Tories over Reform UK, telling The Sunday Telegraph: “A vote for anyone other than the Conservatives is a vote to put Keir Starmer in power.”
But ex-Ukip MEP Patrick O’Flynn claimed Sunak could struggle to pull voters away from Tice’s populist party.
He told GB News: “It doesn’t look to be that close an election unless the polls tighten up and what offer do the Tories have that’s irresistible to right-leaning voters? In 2015, they had the referendum on Europe and also a lot of voters thought that if Ed Miliband got in he’d be in the pocket of Nicola Sturgeon, who lots of English voters came to loathe.
“I just don’t particularly see what offer the Tories have got this time around. They’ve pretty much got Brexit done but the Tories have failed on both legal and illegal immigration. Faith in that is really questioned. And on a whole load of other areas, from net zero to over-taxation and law and order, they seem pretty indistinguishable from Starmer and the Labour Party.
“I don’t particularly think that you should expect that switch back to the party, especially if Nigel is articulating some of those policy areas with complete authenticity and vigour. I personally think that the prospects for Reform, getting a vote share akin to Ukip in 2015, is perfectly feasible.”
Aker appeared to disagree with O’Flynn’s assessment, warning: “If Reform goes down the line of saying they want to wipe out the Conservative Party, a lot of voters will see that as we will definitely get Labour and that will get a lot of people’s backs up.”
