‘They’ll do anything to stop Nigel Farage becoming PM’ as ‘dirty tricks campaign’ revealed
‘They’ll bug his phone and leak that’ says Whitehall insider
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage could be the next Prime Minister (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage’s opponents are planning a dirty tricks campaign in a desperate bid to stop him becoming Prime Minister, a senior insider warned. Dominic Cummings, who was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Number 10, said: “They’ll leak medical records, they’ll leak tax records. They’ll bug his phone and leak that. They’ll do anything that they need to.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s allies and Whitehall officials are determined to prevent Reform UK winning power – and fear he could be the British Donald Trump, according to Mr Cummings. Mr Cummings, who masterminded the successful “Leave” campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum and was also an adviser to former Education Secretary Michael Gove, told the Spectator podcast: “The people around Starmer and all through the upper echelons of the Whitehall system are looking at Trump.
“They’re looking across Europe, and they’re saying to themselves: ‘The lesson is to strike early and strike hard and not let these people in’.”
He said Mr Farage’s opponents were telling themselves: “‘We should never have let Vote Leave win the referendum on Brexit. That was the beginning of the disaster for us.
“‘We can’t make this mistake again. Let’s smash the absolute living s*** out of Farage and make sure that he doesn’t win it by fair means and foul’.”
An analysis of opinion polls by Politico shows Reform remain well ahead of other parties with the support of 29% of voters. While this is a clear lead over the second-place Tories, on 18%, it may not be enough to give Mr Farage a majority in the House of Commons at the next election. However, he could become Prime Minister if Reform are clearly the largest party, even if it means doing a deal with the Tories.
Labour and the Greens are in joint third place on 16%.
Mr Cummings also insisted the Conservative party was “dead” but said a change of leader would not help.
Mr Farage has signalled Reform UK will launch a £5 million spending blitz ahead of May elections in Scotland, Wales and English local councils.
The party’s election war chest has been bolstered by a £9 million donation in August from businessman Christopher Harborne.
Mr Farage plans to spend around £5 million of that over the next four months, on direct mail to voters and social media campaigns.
The Reform leader said: “It’s double or quits. As far as I’m concerned we are just going to go for it.
“If we come out of it without a single penny in the bank account and everyone is exhausted… It is the single most important event between now and the general election.
“On it depends the future of our Prime Minister, the future of the Leader of the Opposition and indeed my own relative strength or otherwise as leader of Reform.
“If we bombed people would ask questions. My entire focus and energy is on the planning and preparation for it.”
He said there would be a “big emphasis on social media” campaigning to reach people who did not vote in the 2024 general election.
“Our key audience is people who did not vote, to motivate them to get registered and offer them a fundamental change,” he said.
Mr Farage has come under intense scrutiny, including a series of Guardian reports featuring allegations from contemporaries at Dulwich College, the private school he attended in the late 1970s to early 1980s.
The Reform leader said claims – including that he told a Jewish classmate that “Hitler was right” and said “gas them” – will not have an electoral impact because they were seen as an attack on him from the “mainstream media”.
“It’s having zero effect,” he said. “It’s maybe solidifying our core support.”
