‘I now believe there is one big divide in British society and it’s not class or money or race or religion. It’s between those that work and those that don’t’: Nigel Farage talks to JASON GROVES

As Nigel Farage rallies his troops, chants of ‘Take Out the Star’ can be heard outside a Sunni social club on the outskirts of Newcastle.

Inside, around 120 Reform candidates gathered for a pep talk with their leaders ahead of next month’s local elections, in which the party is dreaming of a historic result.

Mr Farage tells them they are on the verge of triggering a political ‘earthquake’ that will leave Labor in ruins at the May 7 election.

‘Get Starmer Out’ was adopted as Reform’s campaign slogan weeks ago in an attempt to turn the election into a referendum on an unpopular Prime Minister.

Mr Farage admits Sir Keir is a ‘gift’ to campaigners trying to persuade people to take the plunge on Reformation.

He adds with a throaty laugh: ‘I don’t want him to leave before May 7th!’

‘The slogan we chose before this (the Mandelson story) broke, ‘Let’s Get Starmer Out’, is now looking better by the minute. And I think we can rightly say that with another big defeat for this guy, he’ll be gone by the end of May.

‘It depends on the results in the North East, central and south Yorkshire, parts of the North West, South Wales… if I’m right we’ll wipe out Labor in their traditional areas and the Greens will hit them in the more metropolitan areas, then I don’t see how it will survive.’

The Reform England leader is in his seventh week of campaigning for local elections on May 7

Yesterday the party leader was again foraying into the North East with walking tours of South Shields and Gateshead as well as candidate briefings.

Over a lunch of ribeye and beaujolais at a luxury country hotel in County Durham, he argues that Reformation could reach much deeper into Labour’s traditional Red Wall heartlands than Boris Johnson did in 2019.

Mr Farage points out that voters in Red Wall areas fired a series of election ‘warning shots’ at Labor, including the Brexit referendum, but says the ‘complacent’ party has ‘accepted’ them.

‘Boris never got a whiff of winning at Gateshead,’ he says. ‘Or Barnsley, or Tameside or St Helens. This goes well beyond the remarkable Brexit election of 2019, and in my view this transition is not a one-off… it is a fundamental move away from Labour.

‘What emerged as reform is actually the party of the working people. This is a very broad canvas, by the way; Everything from entrepreneurs to those working for the council to working people. Everybody can see that Labor is now the party of prosperity, not work, and the Conservatives here just can’t connect.’

The reform leader is in his seventh week of campaigning for what will be the biggest election contest before the next general election. As well as devolved governments in Scotland and Wales, around 5,000 council seats in England are up for grabs. Polls show Reform will win big in England, and party strategists believe it will come first in Wales, where Labor has been in power since devolution.

Mr Farage also hopes to end the Conservatives’ status as a national party and is focusing significant time and resources on Essex in the hope of dealing a psychological blow to the Conservatives in a county where Kemi Badenoch and half the Shadow Cabinet’s voters are based. The Reform leader rejects any election deal with the Conservative Party.

He accepts that a post-election deal cannot be ruled out, but is confident it would be ‘highly undesirable’, adding: ‘They don’t deserve it.’

North East tour showed him how much of the so-called Red Wall is angered by Labor

Former Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft tried to broker some peace on his 80th birthday by mischievously seating the two leaders at the same table. This was not successful as Mr Farage spent more time chatting to Ms Badenoch’s “attractive” husband Hamish.

He accepts that Ms Badenoch has dealt a blow to the Labor Party but suggests it will not make any difference.

‘Of course he’s trying hard and that’s fine, but he’s leading a broken brand and that’s the real issue,’ he says.

Mr Farage says Reform has become the ‘working people’s party’.

‘We’re going to have to have a much tougher society,’ he said.

‘Attitudes will need to harden.

‘I’m sorry, but as I travel around the country… I believe there is a huge divide in British society now, and it’s not based on class, money, race or religion. ‘The biggest divide in society is between those who work and those who don’t.’

Public reaction to Mr Farage on the streets of South Shields and Gateshead has generally been warm, but it would be an exaggeration to say he has been mobbed.

Passersby come up to shake hands and ask for selfies, but frankly there aren’t enough people around to form a crowd. ‘Everyone says it’s parking fees,’ he says in an eerily quiet part of South Shields.

‘The council handed out thousands of fixed penalty notices last year; Once you experience one of these, you can’t go back. This is so crazy; ‘This war on drivers is killing our towns.’

In some tight-knit working-class communities, activists believe they have discovered a new phenomenon – the ‘shy Reformer’ – which Mr Farage believes could add ‘a few per cent’ to the party’s final tally.

‘Some of these communities are very tight and very traditional and so saying you vote Reform is more like coming out (as gay), you know – it’s a big decision.’ Mr Farage calls Green Party leader Zack Polanski ‘incredibly dangerous’ and questions whether he ‘really believes half of what he says’.

But he concedes that the party’s success in ‘breaking the Left vote’ will also help Reform in its seat count across the country.

The Iran war comes at a difficult time for Mr Farage, whose long-standing friendship with Donald Trump was once valuable but is now in danger of becoming a liability.

He believes Sir Keir ‘misunderstood’ the incident by initially refusing to allow the US to use British bases to launch attacks; this position was quickly dropped but angered the US President.

He says preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is a “worthy cause,” just like regime change. But he suggests that Mr Trump ‘feels a bit duped by Israeli intelligence and his own domestic intelligence, the neo-con Right may have a bit of an edge’.

Is Trump losing the plot? The question caused Mr Farage to pause and choose his words carefully for the only time of the interview. Finally he says, ‘He will be 80 in June.’ ‘He is an incredibly resilient individual. He closed the border. The American economy still goes to the gangsters. It’s not for everyone.

‘As a friend I’m a little worried about his decision on this, yes. Yes. If a man who has always been anti-war ends up in this situation, it will be a very sad end to a wonderful political career – I find it hard to understand.’

One area where the two men still see eye to eye is energy; here he supports not only an end to Ed Miliband’s Net Zero targets and renewed drilling in the North Sea, but also a ‘revolution’ that would see the State potentially take a stake in the rollout of mini nuclear reactors and even greenlight fracking.

Cheap energy should be at the heart of any industrial revival, he says, along with a dramatic welfare crackdown designed to save money and encourage people to work.

‘What I’m talking about is a completely new vision for the industry, jobs and energy revolution,’ says Mr Farage. Will this include fracking, which has been stopped by the Conservatives and the Labor Party?

‘Yes, I’m not going to make it mandatory,’ he says, ‘but we could have the North Lincolnshire site operating within nine months, located below the River Humber towards Doncaster, in an area with a history of extractive industries. Jackdaw (gas field) in the North Sea, in 12 weeks.

‘These idiots like Reeves think gas costs the same no matter where it comes from. Really? So you’re telling me, Rachel Reeves, that if you extract gas in Montana, liquefy it, drive it to Baltimore, bring it across the Atlantic, convert it from liquid back to gas and ship it to where it’s needed, it’s the same price as producing next door? I mean, they just got out of their car.’

On Brexit, he also promised that Sir Keir’s reset deal would be scrapped.

He says the US economy, which was about the same size in 2008, is now twice the size of the EU. He says it would be a “stupid thing” to burn bridges with America to get closer to Europe.

‘The rigidity of the approach to money, risk appetite and capital in America and Europe is incredible,’ he says. ‘And here Starmer brings us closer to the European Union.’

He acknowledges there is ‘disappointment’ among Brexiteers about the failure of political elites to deliver on potential.

To give one example, he says South Shields would have ‘absolutely a thriving fishing industry’ had successive governments not traded access to the EU.

But he argues the Prime Minister is a ‘fool’ who gambled in the hope that Brexiteers would no longer care about the issue.

‘There is disappointment among Brexit supporters,’ he says. ‘I can say that our 5.7 million small businesses are disappointed that Brexit has not benefited them.

‘But have they given up hope on this? No, will we return to Brussels’ increasingly regulatory environment, who demands what? No. You even write that The Remainers wrote in The Times that going back to a single market with no say whatsoever was sheer madness.’

So will he inform Brussels that he will tear up any agreement reached with Sir Keir?

‘Oh yes,’ he smiles. ‘I want to be free with the lyrics of the song.’