Nigel Farage demands to be included in BBC leader debate as he declares himself the ‘new opposition’ to Labour
NIGEL Farage has demanded the BBC add him to the final head-to-head debate between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer.
The Reform UK leader called himself the “new leader of the opposition” as he said would “fight” the broadcaster to be on stage on June 26 after overtaking the Tories in the polls.
In a post on X, he declared: “Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer are taking part in a BBC debate on 26th June.
“As we are now ahead of the Conservatives in the polls, I demand that Reform UK is a part of this debate.
“If the BBC want a fight with me on this, they can have one.”
It is understood senior Reform officials have already reached out to the BBC to formally request Farage’s addition, but it is unclear if any talks are in progress.
Addressing reporters at a press conference in Central London, he also demanded to be added to a BBC Question Time leaders’ special next Thursday.
He went on: “The BBC will be having a leaders’ debate, a four-way leaders’ debate, with the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, Labour and the SNP.
“That takes place next week and I think we can demand that right now the BBC put us into that debate.
Branding himself the “new leader of the opposition”, he added: “I would also very much like to do a debate head-to-head with Keir Starmer and the reason is very simple.
“We think that this should be the immigration election because whether we are talking about rents, whether we are talking about housing availability.
“There is no aspect of our national life that is not touched by the massive population crisis this country now faces.”
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The Brexit champion said the “inflexion point” had arrived and that Reform were more popular than the “dead” Conservatives.
He added Reform were the “real opposition” to Labour in Red Wall seats – claiming his upstart outfit was ahead in the North East of England.
Farage went on: “They’re still pumping out the same line – if you vote Reform, you get Labour.
“But the inflexion point means, if you vote Conservative in the Red Wall, you will almost certainly get Labour.
“A Conservative vote in the Red Wall is now a wasted vote.
“We are the challengers to Labour, we are now the real opposition.”
It came as Mr Farage performed strongly in both seven-way debates – the only ones he has been involved in so far – which included top Tory Penny Mordaunt and Starmer’s Labour deputy Angela Rayner.
Despite claiming Reform will get as many as six million votes, Mr Farage refused twice to give an estimate of how many seats he could win on July 4.
He told The Sun only winning in Clacton was “not enough” and claimed he “can be that voice of opposition” to a Sir Keir Starmer super-majority.
He said: “We are not going to get four million votes. We are not going to get five million votes.
We are going to get a very, very substantial number of votes.
“I genuinely think we can get over six million votes. I don’t know where the ceiling is.”
The six million figure would be significantly more than the 3.9 million votes his former party, Ukip, won in 2015 when it secured 12.6 per cent of the vote.
He added that there were around 50 Conservative MPs who he thinks sympathise with his beliefs, even claiming his being in Parliament could further stoke divisions in the Conservative Party.
Meanwhile, even a Tory peer admitted that Farage becoming an MP would be “good for the nation”.
Former minister Lord Marland told the BBC: “I say this as a Conservative that doesn’t agree with a lot of things that Nigel Farage says, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have Nigel Farage as an elected politician.
“I think it would be very good for the nation, but we don’t want too many Reform elected politicians.”
The BBC was asked to comment.
