Robert Jenrick announced as Reform UK’s ‘shadow chancellor’, while Suella Braverman takes on education and equalities brief – UK politics live

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Farage says Rupert Lowe's claim his new party at 10% in polls 'utter rot'

Q: Rupert Lowe claims Restore Britain is now polling at 10%.

Farage says polling out later today will show that Lowe’s recognition is “not very high at all”. So the claim that he is at 10% is “utter rot”, he says. He goes on:

He won’t be on 1% anywhere. Not even probably in Great Yarmouth.

Farage welcomes the news that some Chagossians have returned to the Chagos Islands.

Their removal from the islands in the late 1960s was “almost a crime against humanity, frankly”, he says.

He has posted about this on social media.

Farage also welcomes the involvement of Adam Holloway, the former Tory MP who is now a member of Reform UK. As GB News reports, Holloway was with the Chagossians as they landed.

Q: Are you worried about the threat posed by Restore Britain, the party set up by your old friend Rupert Lowe?

Farage says Lowe was not really a friend. He tried to sue Farage.

He says “there is only one proper brand of centre-right politics in this country”, and that is Reform UK.

He says people like Lowe think they can copy the success of Reform UK. But “it just it just isn’t as easy as that”.

He says Lowe favoured the “mass deportation of entire communities”. What he was proposing went “way beyond the point of reasonableness, of decency, of morality”. That is why Reform UK got rid of him.

Farage claims there are now 'very few' frontline Tories he would want to let join Reform UK

Q: You have not appointed a shadow foreign secretary. Is that because you are keeping that available as a bargaining chip to potential defectors?

Farage says there are “very few” people on the frontline of Tory politics that he would be interested in taking as defectors.

But he says he is still talking to potential Labour defectors.

Q: With the SNP likely to win in Scotland, and Plaid likely to do well in Wales, do you think that if you form a government, one of your first jobs will be to keep the UK together?

Farage says when Brexit happened, it was claimed that would lead to the break-up of Britain. That did not happen.

Q: What do you feel about Nadhim Zahawi, who recently defected to your party, complaining about someone on the street looking dodgy. Was Zahawi being too precious?

Farage says people in London who claim that crime has never been lower should get out of their chauffeur-driven cars. He says he thinks Reform UK will win the next mayoral election in London because of the state of crime in the city.

Tories say new Reform UK line-up looks like 'tribute act to old Conservative party'

Q: The Tories are describing your party as “a tribute act to the old Conservative party”. How do you respond?

Farage says, after the local elections, the Tories will cease to exist as a national party.

The questioner was referring to this comment from Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory chair, released within the past 20 minutes. Hollinrake said:

After months of infighting and leaks, Nigel Farage has unveiled a front bench dominated by ex-Conservatives - a line-up that looks more like a tribute act to the old Conservative party than a credible alternative.

Even now, some are already eyeing their next career move, while others who were clearly expecting promotion have been left out in the cold.

Today’s underwhelming announcement proves Reform remains a one-man band. Only the Conservatives, under Kemi Badenoch, have the depth, experience and serious plan to Get Britain Working Again.

Q: You have fallen out with many of the people who have worked with in the past. Won’t that happen again?

Farage says he has worked with some people for 20 or 30 years.

In a reference to Rupert Lowe, he says there are people who think they can easily do what he does. He suggests Lowe’s new party will soon fail.

Farage says, if he were 'hit by a bus tomorrow', Reform UK would still succeed because it now has stand-alone brand

Q: What do you say to Reform members who see their party being taken over by ambitious Tories? And have you ever run anything that was not a one-man band?

Farage says he has been successful in politics. He has set up organisations with specific purposes; getting us out of the EU, getting the country back on track.

This is different, he says; it is about “creating a machine for government”.

In the past his popularity and the party’s were different.

But now they are past that phase, he says.

If I was hit by a bus tomorrow, Reform has its own brand, Reform has its own identity, and now Reform has its own senior characters with their own departments to lead. So I’m enormously proud of that.

Q: How are you going to ensure that you don’t have the same psychodrama problems the Tories had?

Farage says it is very simple; if people behave badly, that won’t be allowed, he says.

Q: Why don’t you hold byelections when people defect?

Farage claims that, of the last 200 defections, only two have resulted in byelections.

And he says he does not have time for byelections. He restates his claim that the next general election will take place next year.