With four days to go before the election, Reform UK is performing better than “anyone in the media, in politics, even dares to imagine in their worst nightmares”, Nigel Farage told one of the largest political rallies in modern British history.
A spectacle more like a Trump rally than anything in British politics, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK packed out the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham on Sunday. Mr Farage said 5,000 people attended the event, making it easily the largest event of this general election campaign and one of the largest formal political events in recent decades in the United Kingdom.
Speaking without notes or auto-cue for an hour, Mr Farage told supporters of the importance of keeping the energy high not just for the final four days until election day, but for the next five years, making clear that while he did not expect to win this election, he wants to win the next.
Mr Farage said:
I know that under our electoral system things are tough. We’re likely to get fewer seats than the number of votes would deserve. But get seats next Thursday we will, believe it, it is going to happen… We know that Starmer is going to win this election but what this election is about is the first step. The first major step that we take in an independent United Kingdom to turn this around. Britain is broken. Britain needs Reform.
…my intention is we build over the course of the next few years a mass movement, the likes of which has never been seen in the modern history of this country. A mass movement for real change. A mass movement that reflects the views of ordinary people of this country. And I believe that we can do this.”
While Mr Farage decried the media attacks he’d sustained in the past week, which he dismissed as “the biggest put-up job and smear campaign I’ve seen in my whole life… really frankly gross” by Channel 4 and “political actor” the BBC, he nevertheless said he was in good spirits and full of confidence. He continued: “I’m not downhearted. Are you downhearted? We’re doing much better out there than anyone in the media, in politics, even dares to imagine in their worst nightmares. We’re doing well.”
Ultimately, no other party could hold such a large rally, Farage’s party colleague Richard Tice said because no other political leaders were interesting enough. “Do you think Keir Starmer could organise this kind of event? Do you think Rishi Sunak could inspire this passion and conviction?”, he asked before predicting millions of Reform votes in this week’s election.
Mr Tice said: “the Tories are terrified, which is why we’re getting all the flak. What does it mean if you’re getting a load of flak? It means you’re over the target. And then there’s a bunch of folk in the media who seem to be terrified”.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage delivers a speech during the ‘Rally for Reform’ at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on June 30, 2024 in the build-up to the July 4 general election. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
While Mr Farage delivered a typically upbeat address of the sort given at several other rallies in recent days — some of which have also drawn crowds of thousands, again very unusually for British politics where the prospect of listening to a politician speak doesn’t normally excite — perhaps the star turn of the afternoon was by new party donor Zia Yusuf.
Yusef, a tech startup millionaire, is reported to have given a considerable amount of money to Reform in recent weeks and used his time on speech to make a strong case for the British values he said molded the Western world, but which are increasingly under threat. He said:
… British values. These are the values of equality under the law, the presumption of innocence, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, love of family and love of country. These values have been exported around the world, they gave birth to the United States… these values are nothing short of a miracle.
… when my parents emigrated here in the 1980s, annual net migration was around 50,000. This meant public services were not overstretched, and new arrivals could assimilate comfortably. Last year that number was 650,000, we have lost control of our borders, we have no coherent immigration policy. And this is impacting all British people, regardless of their race or religion. And there are real consequences to this. To our young people I say you are being betrayed. You are being robbed of a fair opportunity. Almost a third of young adults under 30 live at home with their parents due to the lack of affordable housing. Yes, we must build more homes but we must also halt exploding demand.
Reform UK supporters arrive to attend the ‘Rally for Reform’ at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on June 30, 2024 in the build-up to the July 4 general election. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
A Reform UK supporter wearing a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) cap queues with others ahead of the ‘Rally for Reform’ at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on June 30, 2024 in the build-up to the July 4 general election. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
