After overtaking the Conservative Party in a national voting intentions poll, Farage declared Reform UK as the "official opposition" in the general election.

As a result, he is demanding to be included in the BBC leaders' television debate and a head-to-head with the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer.

Farage said he wanted to challenge the Labour leader on his stance on immigration.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday afternoon, the Reform UK leader said: "The BBC will be having a leaders’ debate, a four-way leaders’ debate, with the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, Labour and the SNP.

"That takes place next week and I think we can demand that right now the BBC put us into that debate.“I would also very much like to do a debate head-to-head with Keir Starmer and the reason is very simple.

"We think that this should be the immigration election because whether we are talking about rents, whether we are talking about housing availability... there is no aspect of our national life that is not touched by the massive population crisis this country now faces.”

Farage said that he believes "nothing will change under Labour" and things "may even get a little bit worse," as he pointed to immigration not being one of Sir Keir's top priorities.

He questioned: "Why, if you are going out looking for the working people of Britain to vote for you, have you not put this in your top six priorities?"

Farage announced himself the opposition in the election after a YouGov poll showed Reform had jumped to 19 per cent while the Tories dropped behind to 18 per cent.