Nigel Farage will 'never be Prime Minister' for one key reason - even if Tories back him

Nigel Farage wouldn't be able to win a General Election because for every "Farage lover" there is a "Farage hater" and he has more power as a "maverick", an expert has suggested.

The leader of Reform UK has said he would be willing to merge his party with the Conservative Party and lead it. He told LBC something new would emerge on the centre-right and he was capable of leading a national opposition to Labour, claiming the Tories "may be dead".

Political experts appear divided over Mr Farage's chances of success at another General Election. Dr Christopher Byrne, Assistant Professor in British Politics at the University of Nottingham, told Express.co.uk he can't see Mr Farage entering Downing Street.

He said: "Farage is popular, but he’s probably not capable of winning a General Election, even with the backing of the Conservative Party.

"For every Farage lover, there is a Farage hater... He has more power as a 'maverick' throwing grenades at the Conservatives when they tack to the centre ground."

Reform's risk to the Tories at the 2024 General Election was highlighted on Friday (June 14) as a YouGov survey commissioned by the Times newspaper put Mr Farage's party at 19 percent to the Conservatives 18 percent on voting intention.

Mr Farage hailed the poll, claiming his party was now the "opposition to Labour", while in Italy Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was not feeling dejected about his prospects and would be "back on the campaign trail" as soon as he returned from the G7 summit in Italy.

Reform's leader has said he hopes to engineer a reverse takeover of the Conservative Party to form a new centre-right grouping and has described the current political situation as "close to a tipping point".

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said this week that Mr Farage should be welcomed into the Conservative Party. The former Brexit Party leader said "all marriage plans are off" in response.

Dr Joseph Downing, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, told Express.co.uk Mr Farage wouldn't want to lead the Tories and Reform's success depended on its new leader.

He said: "The fortunes of Reform are too closely tied to the personality of Farage - what happens if he dies or again steps back from frontline politics? It is not clear that Reform can go forward and replace him."

Parallels have been drawn by political historians between the Tories predicament and that of Canada's Progressive Conservatives, which suffered steep electoral losses in a vote in 1993 and was supplanted by the populist Reform Party of Canada as the country's largest right-wing party in the Canadian parliament.

Dr Downing argued it is quite possible Reform UK could one day do something similar in Britain, adding: "This is quite possible - as the National Rally in France is also looking to supplant the centre right - indeed it has been the National Rally and not the centre right that has appeared in the two previous presidential run offs and so the same could easily happen here in the UK."

French President Emmanuel Macron's party suffered a crushing defeat while the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen triumphed in a recent European Parliament election.

Dr Byrne accepted it was possible Reform could supplant the Tories, but the prospect was unlikely. He added: "The Conservatives remain the most successful political party, perhaps in the world. They do have staying power and they have been wiped out electorally before and come back from it."

He argued Britain's first past the post electoral system would insulate the Tories to an extent, and Rishi Sunak isn’t that personally unpopular, as was the case with the Progressive Conservatives' leader in 1993.

Dr Byrne said: "If they make a decision about what kind of party to be - liberal conservative versus national conservative - and clear out the unpopular faces - and if Labour runs into problems - they could well be back in the game by the time of the next election.

"I can’t see Reform overtaking them, but some kind of informal alliance at the next election is a possibility, if the Conservatives go down the national conservatism route."

The expert explained that the Tories are in a bind in that cosying up to Reform would be seen as unacceptable by a large number of Conservative candidates and "liberal conservative" voters in the kinds of seats David Cameron did well in. He said attacking Reform would risk the Tories alienating quite a lot of the new voters the party picked up in 2019.