Nigel Farage denied being anti-immigration and advocated for market-friendly fiscal policies in a bid to show that his insurgent Reform UK was ready to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party for power.

Farage - the populist architect of Brexit and a friend of incoming US President Donald Trump - told Bloomberg’s UK Politics podcast that he accepted that his party’s economic plans came with a “big initial cost.” But he denied they would spark the same sort of market havoc as seen during former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss’ disastrous seven weeks in office in 2022.

He also used the half-hour interview his renew an offer to help Starmer’s government manage relations with Trump. He hailed Tesla boss Elon Musk - who recently called for Farage’s ouster as Reform leader - as a “hero” for buying the social media platform X and promoting free speech.

The remarks represented Farage’s latest attempt to put a more moderate face on the right-wing Reform UK, which is threatening to overtake Labour in opinion polls after edging past the Conservatives. That surge - buoyed by Trump’s election and the potential for Musk’s financial support - has made Farage, 60, a bookmakers’ favorite to succeed Starmer as prime minister, even though Reform only won five seats in the last election and another one doesn’t need to be held until 2029.

Those familiar with the Brexit architect’s long history of campaigning against European Union membership, and the free movement of people that went with it, will see his remarks on immigration as a softening. He denied Reform was anti-immigration, saying instead it was “pro-control.”

“We are not putting up the barriers entirely,” Farage said. “If we want the City of London - where we’re sitting right now - if we want our tech sector to be a world leader, if we want to turn this place into one of the crypto-trading centers of the world - all those things - there’s a lot we can do with British people, but we will need some highly-skilled people from other parts of the world.”

The remarks contrast with Farage’s campaigning during Britain’s referendum on leaving the European Union in 2016. Then, he drew criticism for suggesting continued EU membership would allow 75 million Turkish citizens to travel freely to Britain, and was accused of stoking anti-immigrant hostility with a poster showing a queue of largely non-white migrants under the slogan “BREAKING POINT.”

Farage again made immigration a focal point in last year’s vote, calling it an “immigration election,” tying economic and social problems to an influx of people from abroad.

Farage stressed Reform was “non-sectarian, non-racist” and would never have dealings with far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson - whose release from prison Musk has repeatedly called for this year. UK policy needs to ensure there’s no “overall population explosion due to immigration,” Farage said, referring to official data showing net migration soared to an all-time high of 906,000 in the year to June 2023. Nevertheless, he said “there’s still plenty of room for people to come on either work visas or in some cases come to settle.” He didn’t address how lower migration would affect the health and social care sectors, which are currently staffed by large numbers of low-paid workers from overseas.

Farage smells an opportunity to finally make a dent in what he describes as a “uni-party” that has dominated British politics for decades. After making inroads into the Tory vote in the general election in July, he’s said he’s now coming for Labour, promising a political revolution.

Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system doesn’t help. Reform’s five seats came on 14.3% of the vote, compared with the 72 seats taken by the centrist Liberal Democrats on 12.2%, reflecting of that party’s more strategic targeting of constituencies. With Reform placing second in 98 constituencies, Farage has vowed to professionalize his party.

Farage has been helped by his relationship with Trump, an old friend who singled him out at a rally in the final days of the presidential campaign. Farage reiterated an offer to act as a go-between.

“If they need help with the relationship - particularly in terms of negotiating tariffs or maybe sectoral free trade agreements, which I do believe are possible with the Trump regime - I, of course, would help because that is in the national interest,” he said. He added that Trump would likely be amenable to strike deals on products such as whisky, motorbikes and financial services, but that one on agriculture might be too hard.

Farage declined to say if he’d spoken to Labour grandee Peter Mandelson - who advised the government to swallow its pride and make use of Farage in its dealings with Trump - since he was named ambassador to Washington. He called Mandelson “bright, clever, wily,” but said Trump worked better with entrepreneurs and that the UK “could do better.” He also warned that Starmer’s pursuit of deeper EU ties could alienate the incoming US administration.

And while he offered some praise for Musk, he also warned it was important for the world’s richest man not to be seen to be dictating policy to the US Treasury Department.

Domestically, Reform’s election performance was built on its so-called “contract” with voters, in which the party vowed to boost growth by slashing taxes, migration and “wasteful” government spending.

Headline policies included saving £50 billion ($61 billion) a year through cuts in bureaucracy and “wasteful” spending; raising the level at which workers should start paying income tax to £20,000 from £12,570, and ending interest payments made by the Bank of England to commercial banks on reserves created through quantitative easing, which it said would save £35 billion a year.

But Reform’s manifesto has been criticized by Tax Policy Associates’ Dan Neidle and the Institute for Fiscal Studies for vagueness and faulty projections. With the UK’s tax collector, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, saying each £100 increase in the income tax threshold costs £1 billion, the tax promise alone could cost more than £70 billion a year.

The contract “set out our vision broadly of where we want to go,” Farage said. “We’re now in a completely different place, and I fully accept that between now and the next election, we’ve got to be more specific.”

Farage said he realized he wouldn’t be able to make all his promised tax cuts at once - a nod to the market turmoil triggered by Truss’ unfunded package of tax cuts.

“We’re being much more cautious,” Farage said. “Liz Truss was going for Big Bang, right? Everything at once and clearly way too much at once without corresponding initial spending cuts.”

The Reform leader also emphasized his desire to push jobless Britons, and those who claim welfare benefits, back into work with a “carrot and stick” approach. Lower taxation would be the “carrot” to attract Britons currently stuck in a “welfare trap” into working more, Farage said.

The “stick” would include welfare cuts and curbs to rights such as working from home and four-day weeks, he said. “What I’m trying to do is give people a way out of poverty by making work pay.”

With assistance from James Woolcock.

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