Nigel Farage is raging over Sir Keir Starmer’s attempt to stuff the House of Lords with allies. Reform UK was not allowed to nominate anyone for the upper chamber, despite Labour putting 25 names forward.

Mr Farage said: “In the summer I wrote to Keir Starmer to ask that Reform have some representation in the House of Lords. He didn’t give me the courtesy of a response, despite Reform winning the elections in May. This makes me more determined to smash the political establishment than ever.”

The chairman of the supermarket chain Iceland, Richard Walker, and Matthew Doyle, a former Number 10 director of communications, have been nominated for a peerage by the Prime Minister. Katie Martin, a former senior adviser to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, is also among the 25 nominations from Sir Keir Starmer, according to a list published by No 10 on Wednesday.

The series of Labour appointments to Parliament’s upper chamber comes as the Government has faced staunch opposition from peers over its flagship workers’ rights legislation. Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has nominated former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who in recent years has become a women’s rights activists in the debate over trans rights. Sir John Redwood, the ex-Conservative Cabinet minister, and journalist and historian Simon Heffer, have also been nominated by Mrs Badenoch.