Nigel Farage will tell his fledgling party on Friday to prepare for power as soon as 2027 – as he warns the financial markets could foreclose on Labour’s spendthrift Government and force an early election.

Mr Farage, whose Reform UK has topped the polls for months, will issue the alert in a speech to his annual conference in Birmingham.

In an interview with the Daily Mail ahead of the conference, the former City trader highlighted the rising borrowing costs being forced on Labour by sceptical financial markets. The news comes as Nadine Dorries defects to Reform UK in massive boost for Nigel Farage.

And he predicted that a new party formed by Jeremy Corbyn could splinter Labour and help hasten the Government’s demise.

Markets lose confidence in Britain

“I think they may struggle to last the course,” he said. “The financial situation is very, very grim. The bond markets, just every single day there is a loss of confidence. I was with a couple of big Wall Street guys last night and confidence in the UK is ebbing. If I’m right about the temptation of the Left for many Labour MPs, they may well struggle to get through another couple of years.

“I shall tell the conference: be ready for an election in 2027.”

Mr Farage is accelerating his own plans too, including setting up a new “department of preparing for government” by Christmas to examine ways to ensure the party’s radical agenda is not frustrated by the Whitehall Blob.

He is also launching a search for 5,000 candidates to fight next May’s elections in English councils and the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.

Tories ‘disintegrating before our eyes’

These, he predicted, will see the Conservatives “cease to be a national party” as Reform seeks to make big inroads in Scotland, Wales and London.

The Conservative Party, he said, is “disintegrating before our eyes”, with a steady stream of defections threatening to turn into a flood after Friday’s endorsement by former Tory Cabinet Minister Nadine Dorries, who he described as a “big hire for us”.

While Labour voters are switching to Reform in their droves, there are only a handful of Labour MPs on Mr Farage’s radar. The Parliamentary Labour Party is “infected with Blairism,” he said.

The capital – like Scotland – was once a no-go zone for Reform, but Mr Farage insisted the mood is changing to the extent that the party could mount a serious bid for the London mayoralty. “London needs better than [Sadiq] Khan,” he said.

Trump meeting at White House

The Reform leader is on a roll. It is just four years since he declared his political career to be “over”.

On Thursday he held private talks at the White House with his old pal Donald Trump, rekindling an alliance with the US President that appeared to have been in abeyance since the last election.

At a party attended by a good chunk of Trump’s Cabinet, he laughed off attempts by Labour’s new Reform “attack unit” and the Conservatives to rubbish him.

“I know what they’re going to say,” he joked. “They’re going to say that I’m a drinker. They’re going to say that I’m a smoker. They’re going to say that I’m a gambler. They’re going to say that I’m a womaniser. The trouble is, it’s all true. So really – really – what can they hit me with?”

Trump ‘incredulous’ at UK energy policy

Mr Farage was coy about the contents of his meeting with Mr Trump, but revealed that the pair discussed issues including free speech and Labour’s controversial Net Zero energy policy.

“We had a very good chat,” he said.

“He was asking all the right questions about the UK and what the hell’s going on.

“The Americans are deeply shocked. The Graham Linehan case is just extraordinary.

“Trump obviously thinks the Prime Minister is a perfectly decent fellow and that’s a good thing. But he is somewhat incredulous at our energy policy. He literally can’t believe that we’re deindustrialising at a time when America is going in the opposite direction.”