Nigel Farage declared there is a “good chance” he could be Britain’s next prime minister.
The Reform UK leader said he thinks the country is seeing “something really historic” as his party surges in the polls.
He compared it to Labour surpassing the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Tories in the early 1920s.
Speaking to the Daily Express at a Reform rally last Friday, the Clacton MP said: “Some great polls, amazing polls, so we are the opposition.
“Can Reform win the next election? Well, the history books say no but I just feel something remarkable is going on, something really historic, something we’ve never seen in our lifetimes.
“Probably the last time you saw a movement like this was in 1918 when Labour suddenly emerged as a massive political party and the Liberals disappeared as a party of government. There is a good chance I could be the next prime minister.”
Mr Farage also rejected criticism from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch that Reform is a “protest party”.
He said: “We’re not a protest party, we’re a positive, buzzy, upbeat party.
“We think her party are a waste of space, we think they betrayed us completely, all the promises made in 2019, the Brexit promises, the reducing immigration promises.
“They broke our trust and people are looking for something different. Labour have done much the same, just within six months they’ve let everyone down.
“So we are the new kids on the block, we are upbeat, happy, jolly, positive, we are not protesting.”
It comes as Reform is ahead of the Conservatives in every major poll for the first time.
The insurgent party beat the Tories by at least one point in all seven of the last voting intention surveys by Britain’s leading pollsters.