REFORM leader Nigel Farage has reached out to claim the mantle of Corbynism with an outburst against big business, asserting that his politics had an overlap with those of the former Labour leader.

Asked by the Politics Joe website what he had in common with Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Farage replied: “Anti-establishment, obviously.

“A sense that the giant corporations now dominate the world that we live in, that politics is very much in the pocket of the big corporates,” Mr Farage said, adding that his politics and Corbyn’s had a “cross-over.”

Warming to this theme, the right-wing populist continued: “Corbyn was a Eurosceptic from the very start because what he thought Brussels would do is be good for the big banks and big businesses and bad for everyone else and he was pretty much right.”

Mr Farage went on to compare the position with that in the US, where he claimed many supporters of Donald Trump had originally wanted to vote for radical Democrat presidential contender Bernie Sanders.

One close associate of Mr Corbyn said that Farage was “not wrong” in his remarks.

Mr Corbyn however hastened to make clear that the overlap between the two was not very substantial. “My opposition to the establishment is an opposition to an economic system that promotes inequality and wars around the world – and an undying belief that a more equal and peaceful society is possible,” he said.

The Reform leader’s reaching out to Corbynites comes after a bumpy few days, which have seen erstwhile supporter Elon Musk turn against him.

The far-right US billionaire had dangled the possibility of a massive donation to the party at a meeting at Donald Trump’s Florida resort, but subsequently turned on Mr Farage in a row over jailed fascist demagogue Tommy Robinson.

Mr Musk then said that Mr Farage was not the right person to lead Reform and indicated a preference for former Southampton Football Club owner Rupert Lowe, now the party’s MP for Lowestoft.

Jilted by the plutocrat, Farage may now be trying to reproduce the inroads into working-class support made by former premier Boris Johnson for the Tories, promising never-delivered interventionist economics alongside cultural conservatism.

Hitherto, Reform has been strongly identified with Thatcherite economic views together with anti-migrant positioning, but Mr Farage’s new turn reflects an understanding that Keir Starmer’s failures have opened up space to its left for anti-big business rhetoric.

However, Mr Farage continued to hedge his bets, saying that he wanted to regain Mr Musk’s backing. “I will talk to him in America in a few days’ time, of course I want to mend any broken fences that might exist.

“I have no desire to go to war with Elon Musk and I'm not going to,” he said, adding however that he would not back down over Robinson.

He said: “The fact that I've stood up on a point of principle — even if in the short term it’s to my detriment — in the long run may even work in our favour.”