Nigel Farage could “definitely” become prime minister at the next general election, Dominic Cummings has said.
The former Number 10 aide has advised the Reform UK leader on how to go from “one man and an iPhone” to entering Downing Street.
Politics Hub: Follow live updates from Westminster
The revelation came in a wide-ranging interview with Sky News, in which the controversial figure, who served as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser from 2019 to 2020, revealed details of a meeting between the pair.
Asked if Mr Farage could be prime minister, he said: “It could definitely happen now, yeah, because the old system’s just so completely broken.
“If he does what I’m suggesting, and actually sets out a path for how Reform is going to change, how Reform is going to bring in people, how it’s structurally going to alter, what it’s going to build, how it is going to do policy, how it can recruit MPs, etc.
“If he does that, then there’ll be a huge surge of interest and support into the whole thing.”
Listen to the full interview at 5pm on the Sky News Daily podcast – tap here to follow
‘One man and an iPhone’
He added: “Reform has been a one-man band. It’s been Nigel and an iPhone.
“They can win 50, 100, 150 seats with Reform as Nigel and an iPhone.
“But they can’t win an overall general election and have a plan for government and have a serious team able to take over in Downing Street and govern and control Whitehall with one man and an iPhone.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free
However, Mr Cummings was also scathing about Mr Farage’s personal appeal, saying it was his party, not him, that had become an outlet for anti-establishment feeling.
“It’s not exactly correlated with what people think about Nigel himself.
“Reform is a vehicle for people to say: ‘We despise you, Westminster. We hate both the old parties, we hate Whitehall, we hate the old media, we hate the whole f***ing lot of you.’
“And Farage going up in the polls is the expression of that core feeling.”
Read more from Sky News:
Farage: Abortion law ‘totally out of date’
Ministers could scrap two-child benefit cap
IMF upgrades UK economic growth forecast
Badenoch ‘probably going to go this year’
The ex-Downing Street aide was also damning about the Conservative Party, declaring it might be “dead”.
“It’s quite possible the Tories have just, kind of, crossed the event horizon and actually aren’t salvageable,” he said.
“Like, everyone sort of assumes that because they’ve always been around, then somehow there must be at least one last chance for them to turn things around, but it’s possible that chance is in their past and doesn’t exist.
“It might be dead.”
Follow our channel and never miss an update.
He also predicted the party’s current leader, Kemi Badenoch, would be ousted before the end of the year and claimed plots to remove her are already under way.
“Kemi is going to go probably this year,” he said.
“There’s already people who are organising to get rid of her, and I think that that will work. If it doesn’t work this year, it will definitely happen after next May.
“She’s a goner, so there’s going to be a big transition there”.
