Nigel Farage has warned that more and more Brits will shift their loyalties from the Conservative Party to his Reform UK party due to the Tories’ unfulfilled promises.
His comments came after Tim Montgomerie, a former adviser to Boris Johnson and co-founder of Conservative Home, announced he is joining Reform in the latest major defection, joining the likes of ex-Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns and a string of former Tory councillors in the party’s ranks.
Posting on X on Wednesday, Mr Farage said: “Tim Montgomerie says the gap between what the Conservatives promised and what they delivered was so great it pushed him to support Reform.”
In a blunt 11-word warning, he added: “I suspect there are many millions like him in the country.”
Mr Montgomerie, an influential figure on the British right, explained why he made the move. He told GB News: “It’s been coming for a long time.”
He added: “The final straw for me, really, was last Thursday’s immigration numbers. How many times have you been sat with a Tory over the last few years and they said they were controlling immigration?
“When you’re part of a political party as long as I was, 36 years, it makes me feel old.”
While in government, the Conservative Party pledged on a number of occasions to reduce net migration.
However, the number of arrivals in the UK has continued to rise in recent years.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) had the year-on-year figure at 728,000 arrivals in June, and this has now jumped to a record 906,000 in the latest figures.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who took office in July, blamed the Tories for the rising figures.
He said last week: “Failure on this scale isn’t just bad luck. It isn’t a global trend or taking your eye off the ball.
“No, this is a different order of failure. This happened by design, not accident.
“Policies were formed deliberately to liberalise immigration. Brexit was used for that purpose – to turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch admitted last week that the Tories “did not deliver”on immigration.
She said: “We ended free movement, but the system that replaced it is not working.
“Under my leadership, we are learning from our mistakes.”