Reform UK leader Nigel Farage visits to speak to Wigan candidates in upcoming local election

He visited Westhoughton Golf Club on Thursday evening to speak to Reform candidates vying for seats on Wigan and Bolton councils, as part of a tour of the North West.

There are already two Reform representatives in the borough – Wigan Central’s Lee Moffitt and Paul Watson in Atherton North – and Mr Farage hopes they will have company after the vote on May 7.

He said that while it is local elections being held, he believes it is national issues that will be key.

Mr Farage said: “Like it or not, when people vote in local elections, the truth is they are voting on national politics anyway – it’s just the way it is. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

"We are not even two years into a [Sir Keir] Starmer-led Government. He has already become the most unpopular prime minister in living memory and our message to the voters of Wigan will be: vote Reform, get Starmer out.”

He said the Labour Government was proposing local government reorganisation and he was “very, very sceptical” that it would save money and be more efficient.

He also believes immigration is an important issue in the area.

Mr Farage said: “The North West as a region has had to take more young men that have crossed the English Channel than any other part of the country. You go to towns all over the North West and find not just hotels, but houses of multiple occupation. People on the streets are feeling that things are not as safe and secure as they used to be or they ought to be and need to be going ahead.”

He also raised concerns about the welfare system, saying: “People who get up to an alarm in the morning and go to work are paying more tax than they have ever paid in their lives and often look at neighbours who are choosing not to work, but almost appear to be as well-off as they are.

"There is a big divide that the welfare system has gone too far, way beyond a system for those that can’t look after themselves and become a lifestyle.”