Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf have hit out at the Labour Government after Reform UK were barred from nominating supporters to the House of Lords.
Their protests came as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer proposed 25 new peers to bolster his party’s control of the Upper Chamber.
Among those nominated were several Labour allies, including Sir Keir’s former communications head, Matthew Doyle, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s chief of staff, Katie Martin, leading to accusations of “cronyism”.
Other party leaders were also granted nominations to the Lords, with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch putting forward two new peers and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey appointing five.
However, Reform UK appeared to have been frozen out of the nominations process, leading to fury from Mr Farage.
“In the summer, I wrote to Keir Starmer to ask that Reform have some representation in the House of Lords,” he wrote on X.
“He didn’t give me the courtesy of a response, despite Reform winning the elections in May.”
Mr Farage was referring to the May local elections across England, which saw Reform scoop 677 council seats in a dominant show over the other parties.
Nigel Farage has fumed after Reform were frozen out of nominations to the House of Lords
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“This makes me more determined to smash the political establishment than ever,” the Reform leader pledged.
Mr Yusuf, Reform’s head of policy, added: “The House of Lords has been permanently debased by these disgusting decisions.
“ZERO peers for the party leading in the polls, MORE for the Lib Dems?
“The House of Lords has become a chamber of out-of-touch failures, hostile to the interests of the British people,.”
Zia Yusuf slammed the Lords as a ‘chamber of out-of-touch failures, hostile to the interests of the British people’
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GB NewsContinuing, Mr Yusuf suggested the decision was an effort to blunt Reform UK’s imperious lead in polling across Britain.
He asked: “Notice how there’s not a SINGLE peerage to Reform despite us leading 150 polls in a row?”
“The establishment is gorging itself on its last vestiges of power. Gorging itself at the people’s expense.
“A reckoning is coming.”
As it stands, Reform currently has one member in the Lords following the defection of Lord Offord of Garvel from the Conservatives.
However, he will step down from the upper chamber to campaign as a candidate for Reform in the 2026 Holyrood elections.
The most recent YouGov polling has shown Reform’s continued dominance, topping the table on 27 per cent compared to Labour’s 19% and the Conservatives’ 18 per cent.
Political appointments to the Lords are made at the discretion of the PM, where they have no constitutional obligation to appoint members of opposition parties.
Political appointments to the Lords are made at the discretion of the Prime Minister
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Convention usually dictates that they will invite opposing leaders to suggest new peers, a gesture which has not been extended to Reform UK or other parties such as the Greens.
In his letter to Sir Keir, Mr Farage warned of the “democratic disparity” that had been created in the Lords without any Reform representation.
Responding to the letter at the time, a Downing Street spokesman said: “The process for appointments to the House of Lords follows established conventions and is guided by advice from the House of Lords Appointments Commission and other relevant bodies.
“While political parties may make representations regarding peerage nominations, decisions are made in line with long-standing procedures.”
Sir Keir’s raft of new peerages came despite his initial pledge to abolish the Lords in favour of an elected chamber.
In recent months, Sir Keir has moved to more gradual reforms like phasing out hereditary peers and introducing mandatory retirement at 80.
Last week, a Tory party source slammed the list as “Union paymasters, Labour apparatchiks and those responsible for this Government’s disasters all being handed rewards tells you everything you need to know about Keir Starmer”.
“While the British public is suffering from the dire impacts of his and Rachel Reeves’s economic mismanagement, it’s more cronyism and more reward for failure from this government. Shameful,” they told the Daily Mail.
The Lib Dems, despite their continued nominations to the upper chamber, have also made pronouncements over replacing the Lords with an elected house.