Nigel Farage leader of the Reform UK party kicks off its annual conference today, with the Brexit campaigner hoping to demonstrate his party’s growing popularity and influence in British politics at a time when polls give it a double-digit lead over Labour.

Reform UK’s two-day conference will be held in Birmingham, with the theme “The Next Step”. More than 10,000 people are expected to take part in this event, which Farage says shows that the party is “moving on and the sky is the limit” as it appears poised to take power at the 2029 general election.

Reform UK has just four seats in the House of Commons, out of a total of 650, but its popularity has not stopped growing since the most recent election in July 2024.

For months now, polls have shown the party first in voter preference, ahead of the Conservatives and Labour.

Reform UK’s membership is now almost 240,000, up from 80,000 a year ago, and at least 10 Conservative MPs have switched to it.

Nadine Doris, a former culture minister in Boris Johnson’s 2021 to 2022 government, joined Reform UK yesterday, Thursday, assessing that “the Conservative Party is dead.”

Meanwhile, the Labour government has been forced to toughen its stance on immigration policy due to pressure from Reform UK.

“The time has come to take us to the next stage as a party,” Farage says in the conference program.

Illegal immigration

The 61-year-old party leader will deliver his speech at 6pm GMT today, a few days after his lightning visit to Washington.

There he spoke before Congress about freedom of expression and urged American politicians to persuade British authorities to stop what he called North Korean-style censorship.

He then met with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, whom he said he had “always supported.”

At the end of August Reform UK held a major press conference on illegal immigration, the key issue on which it focuses. Clearly inspired by Trump, Farage pledged to deport up to 600,000 illegal immigrants over five years if elected.

Over the summer, there were several anti-immigrant protests in England outside hotels hosting asylum seekers.

Prime Minister Kir Starmer‘s government has accused Farage, who has been calling on Britons to protest, of fanning the flames of tension. Illegal immigration, “with the growing anger” it is causing, poses a “real threat to public order,” he replied.

Could Farage become Britain’s next prime minister? Perhaps. He has already managed to persuade a large number of former Conservative voters, such as Sophie Preston-Hall, a small business owner who recently joined Reform UK.

For this 52-year-old woman it is “100%” certain that Farage will be Britain’s next leader. “He is the perfect man for the job (…) We are ready to govern,” she said.