As Britain votes for its next prime minister on Thursday, one expert believes Nigel Farage and his Reform UK Party will help shape British conservative politics in this and future elections.

‘He’s going to make noise,’ Matthew Tyrmand, a conservative political activist and adviser to political parties across Europe, told Fox News Digital. ‘He’s obviously a walking billboard on ideas. People follow him, he’s visible, so he will be able to punch well above the weight of the party’s representation in Parliament.’

Tyrmand met Farage 10 years ago at CPAC and since then has regularly spoken with the political maverick throughout his various political endeavors, including Brexit and his latest run for political office.

The Reform UK party, founded in 2018, appointed Farage as leader shortly after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a snap election to take place on July 4. In the past six weeks, Reform has led to an erosion of support for the Conservative Party and will most likely expand its representation in Parliament beyond its current one member: Lee Anderson, who defected from the Conservatives earlier this year.

Despite those significant gains, Tyrmand suggested that Farage’s influence will largely remain outside of Parliament, for now. 

‘The contention that he will, you know, be the leader of the opposition, that is an aggressive talking point,’ Tyrmand said. ‘Formally, that will certainly not be the case, but ideologically and in visibility, there will be a case to be made for it.’

‘This will set him and Reform up should a Labour government stumble, which I’d be willing to bet that they will do more of the same, whether it’s unfettered immigration or not protecting the working-class people, and wages will still be stagnant,’ he added. 

Reform has nearly matched the Conservatives in polling, with around 17% support compared to the Conservatives’ roughly 20%, according to The Telegraph’s polling data from Savanta.

Tyrmand said that in the British system, because of how votes are spread over constituencies, even if Reform ends up taking 10% to 20% of the vote, it could end up having very few seats overall.

‘That alone is going to shine a light on the system and how indirectly, unproportionately representative it is, and people [will] be pissed off about that, as they should be,’ he said.

Tyrmand argued that Farage’s recent stint on the popular reality show ‘I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here’ helped shed a lot of mysticism around his public persona: Farage finished third in a competition in which contestants subject themselves to a series of trials, according to The Guardian.

‘People realize he’s not the boogieman that The Sun, The Mirror and The Telegraph and everyone else makes him out to be. The way he campaigns and … watched the football match in the Euro Cup, this is a guy people want to have a beer with,’ Tyrmand said.

‘That’s a big part of his appeal and support, but that was really put on steroids after this reality show in December,’ Tyrmand added.

The Sun, a newspaper in the U.K. that Pamco Research Group estimated reaches around 8.7 million people per day, endorsed Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer over Farage, but it included him in a final plea to the British public. 

Normally, only the Labour and Conservative parties would make such bids, and even with a greater presence than Reform, the Liberal-Democrats did not get a chance to make their own pitch.

Farage, in his final plea, said swapping support from the Conservatives to Labour would only ‘change middle management’ and ‘Britain’s elites are happy to see Keir Starmer replace Rishi Sunak.’

‘I am serious about breaking up their rotten two-party system,’ Farage wrote. ‘After Thursday, Reform UK can be the real opposition in Parliament. We will hold Starmer to account over his plans to open Britain’s borders to even more immigration and betray Brexit by taking the knee to the EU.’

‘And this is just the start,’ he added. ‘Over the next five years, I am serious about building a mass movement for real change. A vote for Reform UK is not a protest vote, it’s not a fantasy vote, it’s not a wasted vote. It’s a vote to change Britain for good.’

Farage has run seven times for a seat in the British Parliament and failed to win, but he found success in the European Parliament as the European MP for South East England in the United Kingdom Independence Party.

The congressman whose district is less than 100 miles from Cuba sounded the alarm after a bombshell investigation revealed several images of advanced spy bases in the communist nation.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said in a Wednesday interview there is no doubt China has a big hand in the construction and operation of the bases.

Gimenez elaborated after the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released the imagery while noting China’s official activity there ‘remain[s] shrouded in secrecy.’

Gimenez voiced counterintelligence concerns, noting his district alone houses the Key West Naval Air Station, Homestead Air Force Base and is within a mile of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

‘[This] is an example of the growing influence of China and Russia in our hemisphere,’ Gimenez said.

‘The Biden administration continues to placate our enemies in the hemisphere instead of trying to do what they can to get [nonviolent] regime change,’ he said.

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., attributed Biden’s ‘weakness’ to the proliferation of CCP influence offshore.

‘America must respond with strength and tell the Cuban regime that we will not allow them to restart this new Cold War right on our doorstep,’ Salazar said.

One or more of the sites mapped out by CSIS, Gimenez said, are less than 100 miles from his district. He said it is like having a spy base surveilling Miami from as close as the other end of Alligator Alley in Naples.

He slammed the White House for continuing Obama-era diplomatic ‘opening’ toward Cuba’s totalitarian regime.

However, Gimenez added that some Democrats, particularly in Florida, are equally concerned about China’s malign influence in Cuba and the Diaz-Canel regime itself, naming Reps. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, Jared Moskowitz and Frederica Wilson.

He warned the Chinese could use the Cuban bases to observe offshore U.S. military training and simulation exercises. That would give China an inside look at how the U.S. would respond to an invasion of Taiwan, he said.

CSIS’ Hidden Reach researchers Matthew Funaiole, Aidan Powers-Riggs, Brian Hart, Henry Ziemer, Joseph Bermudez Jr., Ryan Berg and Christopher Hernandez-Roy warned of the proximity between the bases and the numerous sensitive U.S. installations in Florida and the southeast in their report.

The researchers on Monday revealed four sites believed to be supporting Chinese efforts to spy on the U.S. using signals intelligence (SIGINT). CSIS defines SIGINT as a ‘core’ aspect of spycraft and a venue through which civilian and military entities can intercept others’ transmissions.

A top national security expert said China is expanding into places like Cuba to interfere in America’s sphere of influence.

‘Communist China’s latest actions are unprecedented and to-date the Biden administration has made no response. It will fall to the next president to stand up for the security of the American people in our own hemisphere,’ former Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates said.

Coates said China is also simultaneously interceding in America’s backyard through its new Bahamian embassy in Nassau and a Peruvian deepwater ‘mega-port.’

Gimenez, who is the only Cuban-born congressman, said he holds out hope the island rids itself of Chinese and Russian influence.

When asked how long it might take to see real change in Havana, Gimenez pointed to the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and how Germany quickly returned to a democracy.

If former President Trump returns to the White House in 2025, he said, the Republican’s past overtures toward the Cuba situation show change could be possible within his next term.

In turn, he faulted the Biden administration for repeatedly acting ‘counter to American interests.’

‘This secretary of state is the worst secretary of state that we’ve had in American history. I think he’s done more damage in four years than just about anybody else that I can remember,’ he said.

The State Department did not directly address Gimenez’ criticism of Blinken, but it cited remarks from spokesperson Vedant Patel on the bases themselves.

‘I’m not going to comment on or confirm or get into the specifics of that report, but what I can say is that we remain confident that the United States is going to be able to meet our security commitments at home and in the region,’ Patel said Tuesday.

‘PRC activities in Cuba have been going on for decades, and … we know that the PRC is going to keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba and the United States is going to keep working to disrupt it.’

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., a member of the Homeland Security Committee, echoed concerns over the White House’s handling of the China threat when asked about the photos.

‘[China] will continue to expand their espionage of the United States without fear of consequence because they know Joe Biden will not hold them accountable,’ Marshall said.

‘Not only are they using Cuba to house Chinese ‘spy bases,’ they are sending in Chinese nationals through our southern border, shipping over lethal fentanyl, stealing our intellectual property, and purchasing land near our military bases.’

The office of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines declined comment. The White House also did not respond.

Several Democrat lawmakers also did not respond to requests for comment.

Several top Democrats that called for the 25th Amendment to be used to remove former President Trump from office during his tenure have remained silent on whether it should be triggered to remove President Biden, which some Republicans have suggested.

Fox News Digital reached out to Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; Jamie Raskin, D-Md.; and Maxine Waters, D-Calif., along with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who all declined to comment on whether the 25th Amendment should be in play with President Biden as they suggested it should be for former President Trump.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment authorizes the vice president and a majority of the executive cabinet to make the decision whether the president is fit to continue in office or not.

At various points during the Trump presidency, Democrats called for the 25th Amendment to be triggered against the president for a variety of reasons ranging from the coronavirus, to Trump’s competence, to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot.

‘It’s long past time,’ Waters told MSNBC in October 2020 when asked if it was time to trigger the 25th Amendment based on Trump’s ‘erratic and bizarre behavior’ and ‘spreading the virus personally.’

That same month, in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Raskin and Pelosi introduced legislation that would create a commission involving Congress in the process to remove the president if he became ‘incapacitated.’

‘This is not about President Trump,’ Pelosi claimed at a press conference at the time. ‘He will face the judgment of the voters, but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents.’

‘Congress has a constitutional duty to lay out the process by which a president’s incapacity and the president of any party is determined. This bill honors the duty by creating a standing commission of top former executive officials and medical experts selected in a bipartisan, bicameral way. A president’s fitness for office must be determined by science and facts. This legislation applies to future presidents, but we are reminded by the necessity of action by the health of the current president,’ she said.

The legislation was the reintroduction of the same bill from Raskin in 2017. 

‘Since January, President Trump has thrown our country into chaos at every turn,’ Raskin said in a 2017 press release.

‘For the security of our people and the safety of the Republic, we need to set up the ‘body’ called for in the 25th Amendment. The President can fire his entire Cabinet for asking the same question tens of millions of Americans are asking at their dinner tables, but he cannot fire Congress or the expert body we set up under the Constitution. At a moment of unprecedented presidential chaos, the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity is essential, urgently needed and indispensable.’

Following the Jan. 6 riot, Pelosi, Raskin, Jayapal and every other Democrat in the House voted for a resolution calling on Vice President Pence to ‘declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President.’

‘We are demanding Mike Pence and the Cabinet finally put America first and uphold their constitutional duty to invoke the 25th Amendment, ending Trump’s terror and his total control over the military,’ Jayapal said. ‘Assuming the Vice President continues to put this lawless, dangerous president over the people of this country, the House of Representatives must urgently join my call to once again impeach Donald Trump.’

That move was backed by Schumer, who said Trump is ‘dangerous and should not hold office one day longer.’

Following Biden’s widely panned debate performance that has caused some Democrats to call on him to drop out of the race, several Republicans have floated the idea of triggering the 25th Amendment due to concerns over Biden’s mental abilities.

‘Over the past 3 years, it has become painfully clear that our inaugurated President has slipped into a rapid decline,’ Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said Wednesday.

‘As a Christian principled nation, We the People must revere our elders and shelter them from unnecessary struggle and anguish. The 25th Amendment allows America to respond to this moment of crisis by gently removing President Biden from the world’s most powerful elected position. It’s the right thing to do, the Christian thing to do.’

Both the White House and Biden campaign have maintained that Biden is not dropping out of the race and is fit to serve as president.

A new national poll indicates that former President Trump’s lead over President Biden in their 2024 election rematch is widening in the wake of last week’s heavily criticized debate performance by Biden.

And the survey, released Wednesday by the New York Times and Siena College, spotlights a surge in concerns that the 81-year-old Biden, the oldest president in the nation’s history, is unable to govern the nation effectively.

Biden is facing the roughest stretch of his more than year-long campaign for a second term in the White House. This, after his halting delivery and stumbling answers at the debate with Trump in Atlanta, Georgia, sparked widespread panic in the Democratic Party and spurred calls from political pundits, editorial writers and some party donors for Biden to step aside as the party’s 2024 standard-bearer.

Additionally, in the past 24 hours, a small but increasing number of House Democrats have also urged the president to end his re-election bid.

The president is scheduled to huddle Wednesday evening with Democratic governors and congressional leaders, in the wake of the debate debacle.

However, Biden’s campaign has repeatedly insisted that the president has no intention of dropping out of the race.

According to the poll, Trump now tops Biden 49%-43% among likely voters nationwide, which is a three-point swing toward the presumptive GOP presidential nominee from the previous New York Times/Siena College poll, from just a week ago.

And Trump’s lead over Biden edges up to 49%-41% among the larger pool of registered voters.

A couple of hours after the New York Times/Siena College poll release, another well-known national survey made similar headlines.

Trump topped Biden 48%-42% among registered voters in a Wall Street Journal poll. The former president’s lead over the Democratic incumbent in the White House was up from a two-point edge in February.

But there were more red flags for Biden in the polls besides troubling top line numbers.

Eighty percent of people surveyed in the Wall Street Journal poll, which was also conducted entirely after the debate, said that the president is too old to run for a second term.  

Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in the New York Times/Siena College poll viewed Biden as too old for the job, up five points since the debate. 

Concerns about the president’s age among Democrats spiked eight points, to 59%. And nearly eight in 10 independents questioned also said they viewed Biden as too old to serve in the White House.

There was a little good news in the poll for Biden. He narrowed his deficit with Trump among independent voters. But that came at the expense of his erosion among Democrats and Trump’s improvement with Republicans.

Also, the percentage of Democrats who said Biden should no longer be the party’s presidential nominee edged up, rather than surging to new heights.

Biden campaign pollster Molly Murphy, in a statement to Fox News after the release of the New York Times/Siena College survey, argued that the presidential race remains close.

‘Both internal and outside polling confirm that the race remains incredibly tight and I agree with the Times that today’s polling doesn’t fundamentally change the course of the race. President Biden continues to narrow Trump’s support among independents, and we have work to do to bring home our coalition — all the while Trump appears unable to expand his coalition,’ Murphy wrote.

And pointing to the Biden campaign’s advantage in ground-game efforts, Murphy argued that ‘the work our campaign is doing on the ground will be critical to win over voters in a low trust and divided political environment. Trump’s team is doing virtually none of that work, while also being saddled with the baggage of a toxic agenda to undecided voters. President Biden has work to do, but will be running on mobilizing issues that we are confident will bring him to victory this November.’

Ahead of the poll’s release on Wednesday afternoon, the Biden campaign sent out a fresh all-staff memo in an attempt to calm concerns about his chances of being re-elected.

The memo, obtained by Fox News, highlights internal campaign polling that shows a still-close race with Trump.

‘We are going to see a few polls come out today and we want you all to hear from us on what we know internally and what we expect to come externally,’ the memo reads. ‘Polls are a snapshot in time and we should all expect them to continue to fluctuate – it will take a few weeks, not a few days, to get a full picture of the race.’ 

The memo, which was signed by campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez, showcases internal battleground state polling before and after the debate, revealing that Biden dropped by half a percentage point over that period. 

And pointing to the New York Times poll, which had yet to be released when the memo was issued, the Biden campaign emphasized that ‘we should all keep in mind that, just last week, the NYT themselves acknowledged that they are often a polling outlier.’

The poll was conducted entirely after the debate, on Friday through Tuesday (June 28-July 2), with 1,532 registered voters nationwide questioned.