british people feel betrayed. our culture, our values and our communities are under siege. streets that should be safe . streets that should be safe. havens are rife with crime. young people cannot afford to rent, let alone buy a house. and migration is out of control. rent, let alone buy a house. and migration is out of control . but migration is out of control. but amidst this chaos, there is hope. and that hope is reform. thank you. >> okay, ladies and gentlemen, we will now move to the q&a portion of this press conference. we'll start with broadcast journalists over here, and then we'll have a separate huddle with the three of us with print journalists, if that's okay. let's start with. yeah. please go ahead . please go ahead. >> thank you so much. alex forsyth, bbc news. you've talked about wanting to be a party of government by 2029. how many councillors do you need to get

elected in the may county elections to be on that trajectory? and at the senate elections in 2006, can you put a number on what success looks like? and andrew jenkins, if i may, how long have you been thinking about joining reform uk, given you had a picture of nigel farage on one of your election leaflets when you were a conservative candidate ? shall a conservative candidate? shall i go first? >> go on, go on. >> i always like to push the boundanes >> i always like to push the boundaries and be a bit cheeky. and i've always respected nigel and gosh as we've. i mean, what is it, six years, richard, that we, we first worked together dunng we, we first worked together during brexit. we are politically aligned. and how long have i been thinking about it? well, i mean, i was tempted before the general election, but i am a loyal person to a party. i am a loyal person to a party. i might not be loyal to prime ministers, as we've seen in the past. but i'm loyal to parties and i believed, as i said, in going down with that ship

fighting, i was elected as a conservative, and i got knocked out as a conservative. and but i feel and fortunately, the party has become tired. i've got amazing friends in the party, you know, boris, pretty robert jenrick and there's some decent people there. but i feel that the party has lost its way very sadly and reform actually is more closely aligned, and i think it's actually my natural home. >> yeah. i mean, the truth of it is that half the conservative party in parliament should join reform, and the other half should join the lib dems. i mean, i mean . i mean, they are mean, i mean. i mean, they are they are hopelessly split on everything. you can see the internal bickering and infighting hasn't changed one little bit. so , you know, they little bit. so, you know, they are they are literally the brand is broken. the product doesn't resonate with the general public. and what we're going to do, we're going to replace the conservatives as the opposition force, the labour as the next

general election comes along. and i'm not i'm not just sitting here saying that i haven't come out of semi—retirement for fun. i didn't need to do this. i'm doing it because i genuinely think that once every 5000 years there comes along, whatever the political system. and yes, of course we've got first past the post. but once every 5000 years there comes along that moment where sort of epoch, epochal political change can happen. and i think we're at that moment right now. to answer your question, i'm following the paddy ashdown model. you know, paddy ashdown model. you know, paddy ashdown model. you know, paddy ashdown was the dynamic leader of the lib dems who understood until he'd won a significant number of district council seats and county council seats , you weren't even in the seats, you weren't even in the race to win parliamentary election seats or by—election seats . that was the model that seats. that was the model that ashdown built for the lib dems through the 1990s that finally got them into a coalition government in 2010. that is very much the model that we're following. you mentioned the senate elections. i think our

prospects there are remarkably good. we've got some very high calibre people coming on board in wales, which we'll let you know about over the course of the next few months. and scotland. i mean, scotland, where ukip really didn't trouble the scorer . you know, we managed the scorer. you know, we managed to get one mep under the dhondt system in the european elections and one for the brexit party, 2 in 2019. but beyond that, we never really challenged to win seats at holyrood. but you'll see, i mean, last week , last see, i mean, last week, last thursday there were three council by elections in glasgow. glasgow are second weakest part of scotland in the general election . and there we were election. and there we were polling, you know, 13%, 12.5%, 18% in those local council by elections. and i think that one of the things that will change radically over the course of the next few years is the scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of businesses and of the public that we are living through an industrial massacre. luton this week just being the latest

example, this this religious obsession with chasing net zero targets is giving consumers the most expensive electricity pnces most expensive electricity prices in europe. it's giving our industries the most expensive electricity prices in the world. and miliband's mad plans , which only really follow plans, which only really follow on from theresa may and boris johnson, i mean, remarkable. yesterday at the despatch box there was kemi badenoch saying, well, you know , you've closed well, you know, you've closed luton because of your ev targets, to which the prime minister could very easily respond. well, minister could very easily respond. well , actually, they be respond. well, actually, they be your targets. it was you that put them in place whilst you were in government. and there is going to be a radical rethink about what we're doing in the name of net zero. and so i'm pretty optimistic we can do one in scotland too. so the answer to your question is lots. yes, we have to win a lot of council seats next year. we have to win. and yes, you know, it's going to have to be in the hundreds to be credible. is that an easy thing

to achieve? no. are we going to do it? watch this space. >> yes, please . >> yes, please. >> yes, please. >> hi. thank you. beth rigby from sky news. nigel farage. you just spoke about the net migration figures. 900,000, in the year to june 20th, 23, 728,000 in the year to june 2024. all under conservative governments. which gave you a very potent message in the general election of people who voted for brexit and then felt dreadfully let down. but you just said there that labour are even worse. you have nothing to base that on. they haven't yet got a record on migration. and keir starmer says he has a plan to drive down migration and has made that commitment. are you saying that because actually you need to labour fail on migration in order to try and feather your own nest and improve your

chances at the next general election? and to andrea just it must have been quite difficult decision to defect from the conservative party to reform do you worry about what colleagues might think? do you think there might think? do you think there might be a world in which the two parties might merge and become a party to the centre right, right? or would you like to now kill off your former colleagues? thank you. >> okay. in answer to your question, the labour government are failing spectacularly on a number of fronts. just four months into government, a precipitous fall in the confidence ratings in keir starmer as leader in labour's polls. and we see that every thursday with these local by elections that i was talking about a moment ago. ed miliband's promise that they would reduce electricity bills are wrong and i can tell you that because i've seen the strike prices 171 successful wind energy auctions, both

offshore and onshore, all struck at double the current market price. i'm coming to your question. so on energy bills, they are failing. on migration, what i can tell you is the incoming labour government said there would be fewer cross—channel migrants going into hotels. we learned this morning that number has increased by 6000 just since labour came to power. but let's really get to it. what about returns? there was a boast the other week from the prime minister that aeroplanes were taking illegal immigrants back to where they came from . we've to where they came from. we've got the numbers. this morning there is a fall in the numbers that have been deported from q2 to q3, when in most years, because of the weather, that quarter on quarter move shows that actually the number has gone up. smashing the gangs. i've been hearing this about drugs in this country ever since i could barely walk. it's failed

on that and it will fail. on stopping cross—channel migration. and on the broader question of who can come into the country and settle . they the country and settle. they seem to be wholly unconcerned on that issue. frankly . frankly, that issue. frankly. frankly, i think that a very , very 150