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The Reform UK leader spoke to GB News just moments before taking to the stage
Nigel Farage's keynote speech has been disrupted by protesters after counter-terror police blocked the Reform UK leader from taking to the stage.
Four protesters who had smuggled themselves into the main hall at the NEC in Birmingham were forcibly removed after counter-terror police were accused of blocking Mr Farage's address by more than an hour.
Mr Farage, who is embroiled in a donation row which resulted in two aides resigning this morning, updated GB News about the delay to his speech just moments before taking to the stage.
The Reform UK leader told The People's Channel: "Counter-terror police wouldn't let me on while they inspect the stage."
Speaking from the stage a few minutes later, Mr Farage added: "I'm sorry we were delayed. It was a security alert. I was told, for security reasons, I couldn't take to the stage."
Mr Farage's speech was delayed until 5.20pm after campaigners unveiled a banner depicting Mr Farage as Mr Monopoly.
The banner, which was in reference to a gift handed to Mr Farage by the cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne, added: "Collect £5million, burn the planet."
A sniffer dog was brought into the main hall to carry out a security search before Mr Farage's speech.
After one interruption, Mr Farage joked: “These are the benefits of a university education, folks."
He later asked another protester: “Tell us, love, is it sociology, is it? Yeah, I bet it is."
The Reform UK leader echoed his previous response to protesters by leading members in chanting: "Boring, boring, boring."
In a fourth exchange, Mr Farage said: “That poor young girl, she looked like she was going to do herself an injury, didn't she?”
Protesters disrupted Mr Farage's second conference speech last year, with the Clacton MP telling attendees: "She looked like she'd been on the sauce all afternoon."
Despite this year's disruption and delay, Mr Farage set out his 100-day plan for power.
He also addressed the departure of two top aides who quit following a donations investigation by Channel 4.
Mr Farage said: "The fact this happened on the first day of a Reform conference is no coincidence. So you will notice we’ve experienced a little local difficulty today.
"A foreign-funded group of hard-left activists with a long history, indeed a group in the past strongly criticised by the US Congress for their methods, have for over a year and at huge financial cost targeted figures in Reform.
“Make no mistake, this was a prolonged exercise in entrapment. I want to be clear, the party has done nothing wrong, the party has taken no illegal money, the party has taken no money, that’s important.”
Mr Farage also accused his aides, Dan Jukes and James Orr, of acting in a way that was “injudicious at best”.
He added: “The polls in question were not commissioned by Reform. The results were out there in the full public domain and there is no issue.
“What is problematic is loose pub talk including a couple of boasts that were made that simply were not true. But some of the comments made by two of our team were injudicious at best.
“Neither of these men was authorised to act in this way. Accordingly, they’ve stepped down, pending an investigation. I repeat Reform has broken no law, we take compliance extremely seriously.”
Following outrage over Mr Harborne's £5million payment, Mr Farage insisted the gift "might just keep me alive".
He also discussed preparations for an early general election, reforming the House of Lords and Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands.
