Ten Conservative MPs will defect to Reform UK if Nigel Farage comes out of retirement to lead the party, one of his biggest former financial backers has said.
Arron Banks, who famously donated £1million to the UK Independence Party in 2014 when Farage was leader, also said that there were donors with “multiples” of £10million prepared to bankroll the Reform party if Farage took a front of house role at the party.
Speaking to GB News’ Chopper’s Political Podcast, Mr Banks said if Farage were to become leader of Reform UK and fight the next election “10 Tory MPs will walk across the thing straight away.
“That’s part of his calculus. MPs are in contact with him daily about this kind of thing. If he does come back, it will be on the back of something fairly spectacular.”
Banks said that he knew of “at least three or four names” of Conservative MPs who might defect to Reform UK.
He said that Reform’s 15 point showing in the polls was supported by the “the hope factor that Nigel’s coming back”.
Potential donors to Reform UK were ready to give “multiples of £10million” if Farage took over the party, he said.
“This is the perfect storm for Nigel to come back into, but I do think at the stage he’s genuinely undecided,” he said, adding: “He is like a moth to the flame. He won’t be able to resist this. I just can’t see it.”
Farage forecast that currently the Conservatives are facing an “extinction-level” event at the general election, and could fade away like the Liberal party.
“This is where Reform is interesting. I think the Tories they are facing extinction level events like the Liberal Party did when the Labour Party came into existence. They can be wiped out at the next general election.
“And if they fall below 100 seats, then… you probably know the history of Liberal Party better than me but I don’t think it happened in one go.”
The Conservatives did not have “a divine right to government”, he said adding: “I think, actually, the Conservative Party as it currently exists is going to be wiped out.
“And I think if Nigel does it, he’s done a great service to the country and maybe something new and better can come forward in its place”
Turning to Brexit, Banks, who ran one of the campaigns that won the referendum to take the UK out of the European Union, said politicians had to grow up and run the country better.
“Brexit requires politicians to be more grown up and to actually run the country better.
“Now you take a country like Switzerland, it’s very well run. It’s outside the EU, alright maybe associated with that. It’s down to the lack of political governance.
“So I think my criticism against the Conservative Party is as much incompetence that has been displayed over the last 14 years rather than ‘Brexit did this, Brexit did that’.”
Earlier this year Banks paid for a survey which found that Farage could beat a Conservative candidate by 10 points if he stood to become a Reform UK MP in the Essex constituency of Clacton.
The poll by Survation found that the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader would pick up 37 per cent of the vote compared to 27 per cent for the Conservative incumbent if he stood as a Reform candidate
Farage, a full time GB News presenter, told friends including Banks at his 60th birthday party last week that he was torn between staying at GB News presenter, running to be a Reform UK MP at the next election or campaigning for Donald Trump to return to the White House.
“I could throw it all away, start again, throw myself back into the frontline of British politics. These are all options,” he said, adding: “I am beginning to form in my mind what I think the right thing to do is. And I will say what I am going to do over the course of the next few weeks.”
