A close associate of Nigel Farage received phone calls from three civil servants in the past week, asking how they might help Reform UK prepare for government. Officially, mandarins won’t begin talks with the opposition until six months before a general election, which might be nearly four years away. And Reform currently has just four MPs. But behind the scenes, the source reveals: ‘I’m personally getting middle-ranking civil servants in various departments asking if they can help – people who actually understand how to get things done. They don’t want to lose their jobs, but they want to tell us what’s going on.’

MPs may have departed Westminster for recess, but that also marks the firing of a starting gun on a highly consequential political summer. In Downing Street and the Treasury, work is under way on Sir Keir Starmer’s party conference speech, the next Budget and a reorganisation of No. 10, in what’s seen as a vital reset after Labour’s turbulent first year in power. The government is facing two political onslaughts. The first is from Reform on crime, as Farage’s six-week campaign, launched on Monday, promises ‘zero tolerance’ policing, ‘nightingale prisons’ and 30,000 new police officers. The second is from the Tories on the economy, as the Treasury prepares for tax rises this autumn.

The question is no longer ‘Could Reform win?’ but ‘Can anything stop them?’. The expectation is that Farage’s party will pick up thousands of seats in the Welsh, Scottish and local elections next May and emerge as the largest party in 2029. ‘The polls are much stickier than we expected,’ a Reform source says. ‘We could be the next government.’ They are optimistic of winning in Wales and making gains in outer London boroughs next year and are eyeing councils in Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire, Coventry, Dudley and Tameside.

One answer to what can stop Farage might once have been Farage himself, whose intensity used to waver between elections. Now allies describe a man for whom a working day of 4.30 a.m. to 11 p.m. is not unusual. ‘All his bodyguards are ex-SAS and parachute regiment and they’re knackered trying to keep up,’ one friend says. ‘He spent three days preparing for that crime press conference so he was across the detail. There is a seriousness there. Does he want to be prime minister? I’m not sure he does. But he feels: if not him, then who? He feels it’s his duty, and perhaps his destiny.’

Farage’s allies point to an incident before his return to frontline politics last year, while he was campaigning in Skegness. ‘This guy said to him: “Thank you for coming here, Nigel, but why are you letting us down?” You could see Nigel’s eyes go down. He knew he needed to........

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