British voters do not like Trump ‘because they don’t really know him’, Farage claims – as it happened

Nigel Farage speaking at the Reform UK Welsh Conference. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

5.45pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Jonathan Powell, the former chief of staff to Tony Blair, has been appointed as Keir Starmer’s new national security adviser in a further sign that important figures from the New Labour era are returning to the government.

• David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has said that Donald Trump “didn’t seem to think it mattered”, in response to a question about whether his past comments about Trump would harm UK-US relations. Lammy was speaking about what happened at a dinner he and Keir Starmer had with Trump in September. He also said the comments were not alluded to, “not even vaguely”. (See 10.16am.)

• Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has claimed that British voters do not like Donald Trump because “they don’t really know him”. (See 4.34pm.) He was speaking at his party’s Welsh conference, where he also released polling showing Reform UK ahead of the Conservative party in Wales. (See 1.46pm.)

• Asda has warned that measures in the government’s budget will be a “big burden” for the supermarket chain, costing it £100m, and could prevent it from raising wages or hiring as many staff, as it struggles to turn around falling sales.

Updated at 5.47pm GMT

5.40pm GMT

Farage says Reform UK has 96,000 members - putting it less then 40,000 behind Tory party

Farage said Reform UK needs candidates to stand in the next Senedd elections. And her urged people in the audience to sign up to be a candidate at the end of his speech. He went on:

If we organise and mobilise, we will succeed. If we professionalise, we will break every political historical record you have ever seen in this country.

Because I know that the gap in the political market is enormous, and I sense it might just be bigger in Wales than it is in any other part of the United Kingdom.

Farage claimed Reform UK has 96,000 members.

(Last weekend the Conservative party revealed it has 131,680 members – the number eligible to vote in the leadership contest.)

And Farage ended his speech saying the sky was the limit in terms of his ambition for the party.

Nigel Farage speaking at the Reform UK Welsh conference. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA