Costly red tape hitting British businesses has got worse since Brexit, Nigel Farage has admitted. The Reform UK leader, a key architect of Brexit, sought to lay the blame for increasing regulations impacting on firms in the UK on the deal with Brussels struck by the Tories. His comments came after a new poll put Reform UK narrowly ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives for the first time. The YouGov survey had Reform on 25 per cent, Labour 24 per cent and the Tories 21 per cent.

The pollster stressed that the lead was within the margin of error of the survey of 2,465 people over February 2 and 3rd. Mr Farage criticised Sir Keir Starmer’s stance at a European Union summit on Monday, the first attended by a British Prime Minister since Brexit. But pressed on firms complaining of costly red tape, the Reform UK leader told BBC radio: “Sadly that’s true and I think red tape has increased not just for trade with Europe but indeed many businesses inside the UK are finding that since Brexit regulation has got worse not better.

“Perhaps that explains why the Conservatives did as badly at the last election as they did.”. He believes that the trade deal with the EU can be improved but struggled to explain his vision for these new ties with the European bloc. “You can have negotiations, you can be friendly, you can do all those things. But if we start to tie ourselves to industrial collaboration, as appears was agreed last night, then we find ourselves with less flexibility in doing deals with countries like America,” he said.

Farage, a friend of Donald Trump, was one of the leading campaigners for Britain to leave the European Union in 2016, and supports reduced immigration and lower taxes. Sir Keir has said the UK will “stay resolute” in its commitment to working with both the US and the EU as he insisted that Britain is “not choosing between” them. The Prime Minister also said he has been clear that both relationships “are important to us”, when asked if he would be willing to water down the UK’s reset with the European bloc to keep Washington on side.

The prospect of a trade war with the US has loomed over the Prime Minister’s trip to Brussels, after comments from Trump that he is poised to expand his tariffs regime to the EU, while hinting the UK could avoid them. At the Brussels meeting, Sir Keir urged Europe’s leaders to do more to counter Vladimir Putin’s attempts to sabotage vital undersea cables. The Prime Minister told European Union counterparts there should be increased military co-operation and greater industrial collaboration to strengthen defence on the continent.