Sir Keir Starmer’s new government could be “in trouble very quickly”, Nigel Farage said, as Reform UK’s fifth MP watched a football club’s first match in Essex.
The Reform leader, who is also Clacton’s new MP, watched East Thurrock Community Football Club in Corringham on Saturday afternoon, alongside James McMurdock, who won the Basildon South and East Thurrock seat on Friday.
McMurdock won the seat with just 98 votes ahead of Labor, meaning Reform secured five seats in the House of Commons.
Farage was given a warm welcome at Wyldecrest Sports Country Club, where he posed for photographs with locals, had a beer and smoked a cigarette outside while watching the football match.
The Reform UK leader was confronted by a child who asked him to say “Brexit means Brexit” and record it on his phone, which the Reform UK leader did.
Speaking before kick-off, Mr Farage said the new cabinet was made up of “the least experienced people to have ever entered a British cabinet”, with “a few exceptions”.
Asked about his thoughts on Sir Keir’s new cabinet, Mr Farage said: “With a few exceptions, I think they are the least experienced people to ever enter a British cabinet.
“If you look at their life stories, their backgrounds, and bear in mind that these are people who are making executive decisions that fundamentally affect people’s lives, I think they will find it very, very difficult. And I say that because the country is facing some really fundamental problems, I suspect this Government could be in trouble very quickly.”
And asked about his reaction to the Prime Minister’s cancellation of the Rwanda plan, Mr Farage said: “He said he would do it, so at least he kept his word I guess.
“Look, Rwanda was never going to work. What Keir Starmer is proposing, dealing with the gangs, obviously, you know, the last Government was doing that for the last few years, it’s not going to work.
“It’s very rough and windy at the moment but we have strong first-hand evidence that as soon as we get a calm spell they will be crossing the Channel in their thousands and let’s be honest, Keir Starmer has no plan to deal with that.”
The Reform UK leader said his aim was to “build a mass movement for real change in the lead up to the next election”.
“We will do our best with five people in the parliament, what I will definitely do is to create a real opposition in the country,” he said.
“My goal and passion is to build a mass movement for real change by the next election.”
Asked how he would sell proportional representation to the public, Mr Farage said: “The fact that there are 800,000 voters for every Reform MP and 30,000 voters for every Labour MP shows that something is very bad, fundamentally wrong.”
“We have 5 MPs, PR was going to give us 97 MPs but we are at this point,” he added.
Asked who he would like to see as Conservative leader, Mr Farage said: “I don’t think it matters who they choose as leader, to be honest. This party is split down the middle, they call it the broad church, a broad church with no common religion.”
Mr Farage said Reform would “do very, very well” in the Senedd elections and that, given its performance in the Scottish General Election, the party was “very likely to win seats in the Scottish Parliament as well”.
A local councillor met with Mr Farage and told him he was previously a Conservative Party councillor, currently sitting as an independent but was planning to join Reform UK.
Alex Anderson, from Stanford and a member of Thurrock Council, said he was elected in 2018 after meeting with Mr Farage and re-elected in 2022, both times as the Conservative Party candidate.
He said there had been a “disagreement” with the Conservative administration over the budget a few months ago, meaning he “voted against the council tax increase”, his powers were suspended and he now serves as an independent.
Mr Anderson said he had spoken to Mr Farage about the General Election and how “impressive” it was that Reform had received 4.1 million votes.
Reform UK has five MPs among its ranks, with Lee Anderson defending Ashfield, party chairman Richard Tice securing Boston and Skegness and former Southampton FC chairman Rupert Lowe winning Great Yarmouth – both of which were against the Conservatives.
Mr Farage has given a “100 per cent promise” to rid Reform UK of “bad apples” after a large number of protesters disrupted an event to celebrate the party’s election performance on Friday afternoon.
He was booed by protesters in the audience as he attempted to give a speech in central London to draw attention to what the party described as a “political earthquake”.
Claiming the General Election showed “absolutely no enthusiasm” for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, Mr Farage reiterated his party’s ambition to act as opposition to the new Government.
Mr Farage also said he was “taking criminal legal action” against Colin Bloom of Vetting.Com while vowing to “professionalise” Reform UK.
Responding to a question about the racism debate within the party, the party leader once again blamed the company they had contracted to evaluate the candidates.
Speaking in Essex on Saturday, Mr Farage described Friday’s event as “pure theatre”.
“It was pure theater, wasn’t it?” he said. “We had protestors, so I probably enjoyed it more than them.
“But no, I mean, look, the one thing I do with press conferences is the exact opposite of what Sunak and Starmer do, we take questions from any press organisation, we’re not afraid of anything.”
Although Reform UK was founded in 2018, Mr Farage has sought to become an MP on several occasions without success.
He served as a member of the European Parliament for 20 years, during which time he campaigned intensely for the UK to leave the EU.