When Nigel Farage accepted the Spectator’s Newcomer of the Year Award, he suggested that his Reform UK party could get hundreds more MPs at the next election. In this week’s episode Amol and Nick discuss whether that’s possible with BBC political editor Chris Mason and Tim Montgomerie, who founded the Conservative Home website, but recently left the Tory Party to join Reform UK.

He explains why he decided to defect, how his friends in the Conservative Party have reacted and what he thinks can be learned from Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.

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The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson who are both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.

This episode was made by Lewis Vickers with Nadia Gyane and Molly Higgins. Digital production was by Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.