Nigel Farage has demanded a spot on the BBC’s four-way leaders’ debate panel, which Fiona Bruce will host in York next Thursday.
The Reform UK leader suggested the broadcaster should feature him in the line-up after a landmark poll put his party ahead of the Conservatives.
The two-hour Question Time Leaders’ Special is set to feature the leaders of Great Britain’s four largest political parties, the BBC has said.
Based on the number of House of Commons seats before a General Election was called, the Conservatives had a majority in the House of Commons, ahead of Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats.
Reform UK had just one MP with Lee Anderson, in the Nottinghamshire constituency of Ashfield.
At a press conference in London on Friday, Mr Farage said his party had crossed an “inflection point” and added: “The inflection point means that, actually, 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.
“And this needs to be reflected, and it’s beginning to be reflected by the polling industry but it needs to be reflected by the broadcasters as well, because Ofcom and the guidance they’ve given to broadcasters say that really, the most important of all the factors is the performance in the last two general elections.
Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer are taking part in a BBC debate on 26th June.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 14, 2024
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.
“We haven’t stood in the last two general elections. It’s as if everything in our politics is designed to stop new boys and girls coming in and to keep everything the same.”
Mr Farage, who has previously had his own shows on LBC and GB News, and starred in last year’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, added: “I think we can demand of right now that the BBC put us into that debate.
“I would also very much like to do a debate head-to-head with Keir Starmer and the reason’s very simple – we think this should be the immigration election because whether we’re talking about rents, whether we’re talking about housing availability, whether we’re talking about access to GP services, whether we’re talking about pressure on infrastructure, there is no aspect of our national life that is not touched by the massive population crisis this country now faces directly as a result of immigration policies that were started by Labour but accelerated by this Conservative Government.
“And I thought it was very interesting to see the Labour manifesto where Keir Starmer lays out his six priorities for the country and not one of those six was mass migration into Britain.”
YouGov’s poll for The Times, of 2,211 adults in Britain on Wednesday and Thursday, put Reform UK at 19% – ahead of the Conservatives at 18% and the Liberal Democrats at 14%.
Labour led with 37%.
The PA news agency has averaged polls published by several firms including YouGov.
An average of all polls that were carried out wholly or partly during the seven days to June 14 puts Labour on 42%, 21 points ahead of the Conservatives on 21%, followed by Reform on 15%, the Lib Dems on 11% and the Green Party on 6%.
The BBC has been contacted for comment.
