Nigel Farage has demanded a spot on the BBC’s four-way leaders’ debate panel, which Fiona Bruce will host in York next Thursday.

The Reform UK leader suggested the broadcaster should feature him in the line-up after a landmark poll put his party ahead of the Conservatives.

The two-hour Question Time Leaders’ Special, for which a specific location hasn't been revealed, is set to feature the leaders of Great Britain’s four largest political parties.

Based on the number of House of Commons seats before the General Election was called, the Conservatives had a majority in the House of Commons, ahead of Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats.

Reform UK had just one MP with Lee Anderson, in the Nottinghamshire constituency of Ashfield.

Mr Farage said: "I think we can demand of right now that the BBC put us into that debate.

"I would also very much like to do a debate head-to-head with Keir Starmer and the reason’s very simple – we think this should be the immigration election because whether we’re talking about rents, whether we’re talking about housing availability, whether we’re talking about access to GP services, whether we’re talking about pressure on infrastructure, there is no aspect of our national life that is not touched by the massive population crisis this country now faces directly as a result of immigration policies that were started by Labour but accelerated by this Conservative Government.

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"And I thought it was very interesting to see the Labour manifesto where Keir Starmer lays out his six priorities for the country and not one of those six was mass migration into Britain."

At a press conference in London on Friday, Mr Farage said his party had crossed an "inflection point" and added: "The inflection point means that, actually, if you vote Conservative in the red wall, you will almost certainly get Labour.

"A Conservative vote in the red wall is now a wasted vote.

"We are the challengers to Labour. We are now the real opposition.

"And this needs to be reflected, and it’s beginning to be reflected by the polling industry but it needs to be reflected by the broadcasters as well, because Ofcom and the guidance they’ve given to broadcasters say that really, the most important of all the factors is the performance in the last two general elections.

"We haven’t stood in the last two general elections. It’s as if everything in our politics is designed to stop new boys and girls coming in and to keep everything the same."

YouGov’s poll for The Times, of 2,211 adults in Britain on Wednesday and Thursday, put Reform UK at 19 per cent – ahead of the Conservatives at 18 per cent and the Liberal Democrats at 14 per cent.

Labour led with 37 per cent.