'People want something different': How Farage's Reform UK has soared to 100,000 members

Nigel Farage wants to be prime minister after the next election.

A few years ago, he’d have been laughed out of Westminster for saying it. Not now.

Reform UK today announced on Thursday that they have 100,000 members. The party’s growth since the spring has been remarkable.

Back then, Reform was hovering at around 11% in national polls and underperforming that level in by-elections.

Now, the party has five MPs, is getting around 20% in opinion polls and its leader Farage enjoys higher favourability ratings than Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey.

"This membership of a 100,000 - milestone though it is - is but a fraction of what we're actually capable of achieving. People want something different," Farage told a press conference on Thursday.

"We actually genuinely think that this never-ending cycle of negativity, economic decline and societal decline, can be turned around with strong leadership."

The party is determined to keep up momentum.

The next key target is next year’s local elections in England. Reform want to get hundreds of councillors elected.

In the run up to May, Farage plans to spend at least two days a week campaigning out of Westminster. His work as an MP and party leader means he usually only presents his GB News show on half the nights he is scheduled to.

Zia Yousef, the party’s chairman and main financial backer, is overseeing the process to "professionalise" the party.

He leads a team of 10-15 staff in the party’s Victoria office. Their main task is vetting hundreds of council candidates in the hope of avoiding some of the embarrassing stories that plagued the party’s general election campaign - and setting up a regional party structure.

On Thursday, the former Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns defected to Reform and will be the party's candidate in the upcoming Greater Lincolnshire Mayor election.

She has long embraced the party: she used Farage on her election leaflets back in June when campaigning to be re-elected as a Conservative MP, and was at Reform UK’s conference in September as an "observer".

“Her defection is the least surprising event of the entire year,” one senior Tory MP told me. Another said they had “nothing polite” to say about her.

There are critics who look at right-wing populist parties across Europe and feel Reform should be doing, and should have done, far better.

Farage has appeared on the brink of major breakthroughs before with previous parties he has led.

This time, his team think they are in a stronger position than ever before and are determined to seize the opportunity over the next five years.

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