Nigel Farage clearly wasn’t anticipating empty chairs at empty tables while speaking at Reform UK’s latest London event.
The party leader spoke at a rally but addressed the fact that the Monday event may not have been the best time to approach business people.
‘As for this hall? Well, staff incompetence,’ Farage declared while on stage with a large number of empty seats seen behind and to the sides of him.
He continued: ‘It’s all well and good advertising the businesses, but on Mondays, people who run businesses tend to be rather busy.’
Farage laughed to himself, with the speech prompting a smattering of applause from the crowd and a chuckle from Robert Jenrick, who stood by the podium.
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He continued: ‘And no doubt, many of those that are here, it’s going to have cost them a very great deal of money to have given up their day’.
The half-empty seats come after a rather awkward Reform rally in Plymouth where the voter base wasn’t quite what they anticipated.
Jenrick had asked the party members to stand up if they work, only to discover that it was a small number of the audience.
Thinking on his feet, the former Tory MP who jumped ship this year, then asked audience members who run a business to stand up, prompting an even more muted response.
Finally, he got people on their feet by asking who was drawing down from their pension. Turns out that was the majority of the crowd.
A rather unfortunate response for a party that’s called itself a ‘real party of workers’ previously. But perhaps, as Farage said, the rest were just busy at work; it was a Tuesday after all.
The Westminster event was to launch the party’s ‘Economic Rescue Plan’, after Farage had praised the ‘success’ of Brexit.
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he claimed that Britain now stands ‘taller in the world’ despite, in 2023, saying leaving the EU ‘failed’.
Farage, who is still under investigation for his undeclared £5million gift from a crypto billionaire, said that ‘growth rates are higher than our European competitors’.
Recent polling from Ipsos has Reform in third, following Labour and the Tories, with Andy Burnham’s takeover proving a wise move.
Reform has been on a downward trend after accusations over undeclared donations and allegations of racism, with questions raised about Farage’s scrutiny.
One aspiring MP, filmed undercover by ITV, called for Britain to build concentration camps while Dean Miller, a Bromley councillor who has since resigned, described Black children as ‘animals’.
After 100 days in office and the Prime Minister’s first Autumn Budget days away, Burnham is now around 12 points clear of Reform.
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