Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned that Nigel Farage will collapse the economy if his "Reform UK" party ever won power, Reuters reported.
He described his tax and spending plans as fantasy.
Farage has emerged as Labour’s main threat in the polls.
Starmer’s Labour Party suffered heavy losses in local elections earlier this month after less than a year in power, losing ground to Reform UK, which is also currently leading in national opinion polls.
Farage has presented a right-wing agenda to cut immigration and lower taxes, while courting workers who may be unhappy with Labour over Starmer’s efforts to cut public spending.
Starmer, however, has said that Farage’s economic plan is similar to that of former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss, who resigned in October 2022. after less than two months in power, when her "mini budget" of unfunded tax cuts rocked markets.
"We were elected to fix this mess," Starmer said of Truss's economic legacy.
"Now in government we are again fighting the same fantasy - this time Farage's. "The same bet in the same casino: that you can spend tens of billions of pounds on tax cuts without having a proper way to pay for it," the prime minister stressed.
Farage, one of Britain's most recognisable politicians, was elected to parliament for the first time last year when his party won five seats.
But he has spent more than a decade campaigning outside the mainstream of British politics, forcing successive governments to change their policies on Europe and immigration for fear that his populist appeal could turn voters against them.