Reform isn’t ready for government, Nigel Farage admits
Nigel Farage has admitted Reform UK is not yet ready to govern, saying his party is only “half-ready” to govern Britain.
Despite being ahead in polls for months and welcoming many former Tory cabinet ministers into his party, the Reform UK leader said they would not be ready to govern just yet.
Talking to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC Reform: Are You Ready to Manage? Mr Farage was asked in the documentary how prepared the party was to come to power at the next general election.
“We are halfway towards readiness,” he said.
It comes after a recent poll revealed the voting gap in Reformation England had narrowed amid doubts about their readiness to govern.
A recent Ipsos poll found that only a quarter of Britons agreed that a Reformed UK was ready to form the next government, while 58 per cent disagreed. This situation has worsened slightly compared to September 2025, when 53 percent disagreed; but overall the party is still ahead by 8 points.
Mr Farage promised to begin preparations for the government last year when he announced at the party conference that he would establish a department to prepare the government and appoint Zia Yusuf to head policy.
He said the next national election could be held in 2027 instead of 2029 and the party should be ready to govern at any time.
“All I can do is promise that I’m going to give it my all, I’m going to give it absolutely everything I’ve got,” he said in September. “No one cares about the state of this country more than I do. I’m determined to do something about it.”
A Reform England website also declared under the ‘government readiness’ field that the party was “ready to form the next government” and was “looking for people to help us prepare for that moment”.
Ms Kuenssberg also asked the Reform UK leader whether the recent departures of high-profile Conservatives, including Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, had made them “the home of screwed-up Tories” and whether she had “lost the debate in their own party”.
“Yes, they lost the debate in their own party,” he admitted. “You’re absolutely right, that’s why they’re coming to us, and that’s why the centre-right of British politics is uniting around reform.”
Meanwhile, the party is trying to win another seat in Parliament amid a highly controversial by-election in Gorton and Denton.
Since former MP Andrew Gwynne resigned from the seat, speculation has increased that Reform could win the seat, which Labor holds with 51 per cent of the vote, in 2024.
