Nigel Farage has called on Sir Keir Starmer to give him the right to nominate Reform peers to the House of Lords.
Mr Farage accused the Prime Minister of overseeing a “democratic disparity” as his party has no representation in the upper chamber, despite his party controlling ten councils and having four MPs.
Mr Farage accused the prime minister of overseeing a ‘democratic disparity’
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The power to make political appointments to the House of Lords lies solely with the Prime Minister as there is no constitutional requirement to offer positions to politicians from other parties.
But through convention, No10 asks leaders of opposing parties to put forward nominations at the same time the Prime Minister makes his own appointments.
Reform won 14 per cent of the popular vote, over 4 million votes in total, and five seats in the last year’s election, but were not asked by Mr Starmer to nominate anyone for peerage.
At the end of last year, the Prime Minister nominated 30 Labour officials for peerage, while allowing the Conservatives to nominate six and the Liberal Democrats to put two names forward.
The power to make political appointments to the House of Lords lies solely with the Prime Minister
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In a letter sent to the Prime Minister, Mr Farage said: “My party received over 4.1 million votes at the general election in July 2024 and have since won a large number of seats in local government, led in the national opinion polls for many months and won the only by-election of this parliament.
“The Greens, DUP, Plaid Cymru and UUP [Ulster Unionist Party] have 13 peers between them, but Reform UK has none.
“The time has come to address the democratic disparity that exists in the upper house.”
The potential nominations Reform could make if allowed to by the Mr Starmer include the party’s immigration and justice spokeswoman, Ann Widdecombe, treasurer Nick Candy and the party’s DOGE chief, Zia Yusuf.
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Reform won 14 per cent of the popular vote and five seats in the last year’s election
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PAConstitutional expert, Lord Norton of Louth, said: “The prime minister is the only person who writes the rules on this as it stands.
“Historically appointments to the House of Lords were in the gift of the Crown but that function has been passed to the Prime Minister.
“Any decision on whether to create Reform MPs would rest with him alone.”
Conservative peer, Lord Hayward, said that he believed that Mr Starmer was “entirely within his rights” to hold off allowing Reform nominations for the time being.
He said: “Just because Reform has few MPs and is doing well in the opinion polls that does not mean that they are an established credible party that should be represented in the House of Lords.”
Mr Farage has been a long-term critic of the House of Lords.
In Reform’s 2024 manifesto, the party called for replacing the unelected upper house with a “much smaller, more democratic second chamber”.
The Prime Minister is currently nominating new peers to the House of Lords which is set to be announced later this year.
