Nigel Farage holds Reform rally at Leeds First Direct Arena

Ahead of local elections in May, Mr Farage addressed supporters at the First Direct Arena in Leeds on Tuesday night.

As reported yesterday by the T&A, Mr Farage had earlier visited a pub in Churwell, near Morley, where he predicted major changes to the make-up of Bradford Council at the upcoming local elections.

In last May’s local elections, Reform made big gains in England – winning 677 of around 1,600 seats across a clutch of mainly Tory-held authorities last contested in 2021.

Hundreds of council seats will be up for grabs across West Yorkshire in this year’s local elections.

Mr Farage said he believed Reform had “every chance of winning in Barnsley, in South Yorkshire, in Wakefield, just down the road”.

“We are going to make a real dent,” he added.

During the rally, Mr Farage claimed “Britain is broken” and “nothing works”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (centre) holding a scarf during a Reform UK local election rally at the First Direct Bank Arena, in Leeds (Image: Peter Byrne)

He said: “We need to turn around the mess of economic decline, societal decline, frankly a failure of leadership across both parties and broken promises.

“We now need leaders and politicians who believe in putting the British people first – and that’s us.”

Mr Farage said Reform’s council tax rises would be lower than other parties’ increases, and he promised to tackle “wasteful expenditure in local Government”.

He said illegal migrants would be “detained and deported” and he also criticised the UK’s net zero target.

Mr Farage also said Reform would be the “party of small and medium-sized businesses, of shopkeepers and hard-workers”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage visited Churwell, near Morley, before the rally in Leeds (Image: Mike Simmonds, T&A)

At the end of the rally, Mr Farage invited Reform candidates hoping to be elected in seats across Yorkshire in May to join him on the stage.

He said: “These people have put their head above the parapet.

“These people are keen to lead.”

Before the rally, anti-Reform protesters gathered outside the First Direct Arena.

One said: “I’m protesting against Nigel Farage coming to our city, spreading his divisive right-populist rhetoric.”

Another added: “I’m as British as anyone else and I thoroughly disagree with what Reform put out – I think they’re very divisive.”

Someone else said Mr Farage should “get out of Leeds”.

Another protester added: “We don’t want to see him in Leeds, we don’t want to see him do well in the elections.”

The local elections will take place on May 7.