Richard Tice reveals what really happened in behind the scenes Nigel Farage meetings

Richard Tice has revealed what really happened leading up to Nigel Farage's shock takeover of Reform UK.

Sitting outside a fish and chip shop in Clacton, Essex on Tuesday, the former party leader insisted that the Brexit architect's comeback to frontline politics was always part of the plan.

As he arrived for Farage's landmark speech after announcing he will stand in the seaside town, Tice told Express.co.uk: "I've been asking Nigel to get more and more involved for months and months and months.

"I wanted him to get as stuck in as he was able to do.

"This is a plan, we've been thinking about different options about different ways of doing it but ultimately it had to be his final decision."

Addressing hundreds who gathered at Clacton's iconic pier this afternoon, Farage vowed to be a “bloody nuisance” in Westminster if he succeeds in becoming an MP at his eighth attempt.

The veteran Eurosceptic suggested a “chunk” of the Conservatives could join his party and compared the situation to Canadian politics, where Stephen Harper had been elected as a Reform MP but went on to head a “new Conservative” government.

Echoing the new leader's calls for a "takeover", Tice has hailed Farage's new leadership as a "huge groundswell". The latest polls show that Reform could get 14 percent of the vote, catching up to the Tories' 20 percent.

"There's a lot of shy reformers out there and word is spreading that became really clear to us last week," he said.

"We knew something was happening but last week was extraordinary... we've grown from zero percent to the mid-teens.

"Over three years everyone laughed at me and said 'you're wasting your time' but the thing is, we stuck at it. Here we are now, we are the seismic, only story of interest in this General Election campaign.

"In three years from nobody believing in us with a very small team and I'm very proud."

Putting his full faith in Farage, the candidate for Boston and Skegness said: "Nigel's made a decision and we're off."

So sure, in fact, of Reform's apparent meteoric rise Tice could not say what will happen if Farage fails to secure the seat.

"[Nigel Farage] is going to win here," he said. "Lee [Anderson] going to win and I'm going to win and we are going to put a seismic force into the House of Commons, of that I have no doubt at all.

"But if I wrong, as Nigel said yesterday this is a medium term plan."

The key, he said, is what happens at the next election: "We know that Labour's going to win this election - everyone knows that.

"The reality is who are the real opposition? That's the question. And what happens in the 28/29 election.

"Rome's not built in a day but we are building a big thing."