Nigel Farage could "definitely" become prime minister at the next general election, Dominic Cummings has declared. Boris Johnson's former chief adviser said he has advised the Reform UK leader on how to go from "one man and an iPhone" to entering Downing Street.

Asked if Mr Farage could be prime minister, Mr Cummings told Sky News: "It could definitely happen now, yeah, because the old system's just so completely broken. If he does what I'm suggesting and actually sets out a path for how Reform is going to change, how Reform is going to bring in people, how it's structurally going to alter, what it's going to build, how it is going to do policy, how it can recruit MPs, etc.

"If he does that, then there'll be a huge surge of interest and support into the whole thing."

He added: "Reform has been a one-man band. It's been Nigel and an iPhone.

"They can win 50, 100, 150 seats with Reform as Nigel and an iPhone.

"But they can't win an overall general election and have a plan for government and have a serious team able to take over in Downing Street and govern and control Whitehall with one man and an iPhone."

But Mr Cummings insisted Reform's appeal was due to anti-establishment feeling rather than Mr Farage personally.

He said: "It's not exactly correlated with what people think about Nigel himself.

"Reform is a vehicle for people to say: 'We despise you, Westminster. We hate both the old parties, we hate Whitehall, we hate the old media, we hate the whole f***ing lot of you.'

"And Farage going up in the polls is the expression of that core feeling."

Mr Cummings also said the Tory party "might be dead" and predicted Kemi Badenoch could "probably" be ousted as leader this year.

His comments come as Reform is riding high in opinion polls following its success in the local elections earlier this month.