Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has claimed that Andy Burnham has no mandate to lead the country and called for the public to be given a say in a general election.
On Andy Burnham’s return as an MP, Farage said on GB News: “It’s very interesting. Remember Boris Johnson as Mayor of London, enormously popular. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester, enormously popular. Why? Because mayors fulfil a civic role. They cut ribbons, they host visiting film stars.
“Politicians have to take positions. We, at the moment, have almost no idea where this man stands on anything. He’s flipped and flopped in the last month more than Keir Starmer has in the last two years. So, yes, it looks like a triumphant entry, but we’ll see.
“I’m hoping that Al Carns, or someone like that, stands against him, so that over the course of a summer we can actually see what he stands for. At the moment, we haven’t got a clue. And, by the way, if he does become Prime Minister on July 17, he’ll do so with no mandate whatsoever – no mandate whatsoever.
“I think the public are sick to death of a game of musical chairs that’s going on in Downing Street and deserve a vote.”
Asked if he had any sympathy for Starmer, Farage said: “A little bit, but not much. No, not much. I found he became petulant, aggressive, rude, insulting. He left yesterday with no dignity at all.”
He said there should be a general election and slammed the Tories: “Kemi Badenoch does not want an election, so she dresses it up in a certain way. She knows the Conservative Party would be obliterated if there was an election tomorrow.
“We’ve got a couple of thousand candidates that have been going through the process for the last x number of months, so look, we can be ready very, very quickly.”
On Reform’s polling, he said: “Let’s remember that Keir Starmer won a massive majority on a third of the vote, so under our system, if we get a third of the vote, we can win a massive majority.
“Is there going to be a general election where the other parties all get together and conspire in some big anti-Reform coalition? I just don’t see it, because they’ve all got their own self-interest.
“I came back into this game two years ago, we’ve led the last 300 opinion polls in a row, and even if for now we’re there at 30, we’re still 9 to 10 points ahead of all the others. It’s not bad.
“I think there’ll be a short-term Burnham bounce. I don’t see a big Burnham bounce. Maybe I’m wrong, but look, this has to be put to the public. We can’t go on like this.”
Asked about a possible run on the pound, Farage said: “When you see that our national debt is growing more quickly than any country in the world apart from Botswana, we are in big, big trouble, but I’d rather the election happened before that.”
