Conservative ‘underdogs’ can still win, says Shapps

Nigel Farage will on Monday launch the Reform UK manifesto — or “contract” with voters — claiming that he could be Britain’s prime minister by the end of the decade.

Farage told the BBC he hoped to form a “bridgehead in parliament” on July 4 and then to build a “big campaigning movement” across the country ahead of a subsequent election that must be held by 2029.

Asked if he thought he could become prime minister in a Reform UK government: “Yes, absolutely,” he said. “That’s our ambition and we believe it’s achievable.”

A Reform UK candidate standing in Kemi Badenoch’s constituency has resigned from the party after it emerged he had previously urged people to vote for the BNP.

According to The Times, Grant StClair-Armstrong wrote on a website that he could “weep now, every time I pick up a British newspaper . . . My solution . . . vote BNP!”

StClair-Armstrong said on X that he does not and has “never” supported the BNP.

StClair-Armstrong will still appear on ballot papers as a Reform UK candidate as the deadline for nominations passed last week. Were he elected he would sit as an independent.

We are into the second half of the election campaign, after the midpoint on Friday. Labour candidate Rosie Duffield said she had withdrawn from hustings events for safety reasons, and Nigel Farage said he would invite Tory MPs to defect to Reform UK if he was elected.

• Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said she would break down EU trade barriers and secure billions of pounds through an early international investment summit if Labour won the election. In an FT interview, Reeves signalled that Labour would go further than previously thought in seeking closer UK-EU trade terms.

• Nigel Farage gave a combative press conference on Friday, a day after a YouGov poll put his Reform UK party ahead of the Conservatives in voter intentions. Rishi Sunak was out of the country for a second day at a G7 summit in Italy.

• Farage said the Conservative brand was “done” and any returning Tory MPs would be welcome in Reform UK, as he promised to lead a five-year campaign up to the 2029 election.

• Labour’s Wes Streeting said the party was ready to “take on” Reform UK and that Farage had “never been tested as a politician”.

• Rosie Duffield said she had decided not to attend local hustings events due to “constant trolling, spite and misrepresentation from certain people” and its effect on her sense of security.

• Labour received more than £1mn in donations during the first week of the election campaign, nearly twice as much as the Conservatives.