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Reform UK Leader, Nigel Farage, has escalated his assault on Britain’s political establishment, publishing a blistering essay in which he demands a general election “at the soonest possible date” and dismissing Andy Burnham as a continuity politician with no mandate to lead the country.
Writing on his Substack on Monday, the Reform UK leader declared that the country “cannot afford to waste another week drifting from crisis to crisis” and argued that Burnham’s Makerfield by-election win, achieved on fewer than 25,000 votes, gives him no legitimate claim to the keys of Downing Street.
“We are about to have our sixth Prime Minister in seven years,” Farage wrote, likening Britain’s revolving door of leaders to post-war Italy. “Is that the sort of politics Labour voters wanted to see repeated when they took a chance on a different party in 2024?”
Farage was particularly withering about Burnham’s campaign, accusing the incoming Labour frontrunner of repackaging Reform’s own anti-Starmer message to win Makerfield, rather than running on any ideas of his own. He claimed Burnham deliberately concealed his record from serving under Gordon Brown and voting for the Iraq War, to his positions on migration and gender policy to win over voters who simply wanted rid of Keir Starmer.
“It displays nothing less than contempt for the British people,” Farage wrote.
The Reform leader used the piece to set out a sweeping pitch for his own party, citing record tax burdens, collapsing growth, rising energy costs, open borders, and a £100 billion annual debt interest bill as evidence that Labour and the Conservatives have jointly failed Britain.
He promised to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), scrap Net Zero, raise the VAT threshold for small businesses, and introduce a no-tax-on-overtime policy.
He also took aim at the Conservatives for opposing a snap election, describing both major parties as a “uniparty” determined to keep Reform out of power.
“They are frightened of us,” he said. “That’s why they band together at every by-election to attempt to block us.”
Farage has now publicly added Starmer to his list of Prime Ministers he claims to have brought down, alongside David Cameron, Theresa May, and Rishi Sunak and made clear he views the next general election as Reform’s moment to take power.
“I’ve had enough of waiting around,” he wrote. “Britain needs change, real change, not another washed-up has-been shoved into place by the uniparty.”
