A controversial veteran of the Special Boat Service has insisted he is serious about running for Mayor of London. Ant Middleton, who won fame as the chief instructor on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, is intent on standing in the 2028 election. He is running as an Independent but has expressed support for Reform UK and hopes to hold a conversation with party leader Nigel Farage.

Reform has yet to select an official candidate but there is the potential for multiple would-be mayors competing for the votes of Right-leaning Londoners. In last year’s contest, Labour’s Sadiq Khan won with 43.8% of the vote, with the Conservatives taking 32.7% and Reform UK winning just 3.2%.

Mr Middleton came under cross-party fire for his online claim in July that even third generation immigrants should not hold “top-tier Government positions”. On Thursday, lawyers for the Ministry of Defence were granted a temporary injunction to stop Mr Middleton describing his activities in the special forces after he took part in a podcast on the “quiet split between UK and US forces”.

Despite numerous controversies and time behind bars, Mr Middleton insists he is determined to pursue a new career in politics with the goal of bringing people together.

He said: “I’m jumping back in to serve. My wife said to me the other day, ‘We lead a lovely life. Are you sure you want to do this?’ And when I started talking about it, she said, ‘Stop. The last time I saw that look in your eyes was when you volunteered to go back out to Afghanistan.’”

Expressing his support for Mr Farage’s policies, Mr Middleton – who addressed the Reform UK conference last year – said: “I’ve always been aligned with Reform. I like Nigel.

“I’ve been a friend of Nigel’s for a long time. I’m really, really keen on his policies, I really like the direction that they’re going in.”

When asked about the potential for Mr Middleton standing for Reform UK, a spokesperson said the party had not opened its selection process and noted the election is more than 880 days away.

Describing his determination to run, Mr Middleton said: “It’s honestly a calling to serve my people, the people, and to serve London. It is our capital. It is the crown jewel of England.”

The 45-year-old father of five said he plans to spend the next 25 to 30 years in politics.

“If I do not become Mayor of London, then you better believe that you might see me in the House of Commons or in the cabinet one day,” he said.

If elected to the mayoralty, he pledged, he would donate his “full mayoral wage to a military veterans charity”.

He wants to see conditional immunity for veterans who served in Northern Ireland restored as a “bare minimum” and described the treatment of those who served in the military as “disgusting”.

He said: “You’re just left to fend for yourself, which is fine. But then don’t feed us to the wolves.”

Arguing that veterans should be celebrated, he said: ‘We should be rewarding them in a way where we are constantly grateful, constantly thankful and constantly appreciative of of the service that they gave to Queen and country.”

A sense of shared identity, he argues, is key to bringing together different communities.

“When you lose your sense of identity, you lose your sense of purpose and a sense of belonging,” he said. “Those two things are really, really keen for unity.”

Mr Middleton joined the armed forces as a teenager and would later serve in the Royal Marines and the Special Boat Service before forging a career as an author and broadcaster.

Describing the impact of swearing an oath of allegiance to the monarch, he said: “I genuinely thought, as a young 17-year-old that I was the Queen’s personal bodyguard… It gave me such a sense of purpose and belonging and identity.

“Once you get an identity like that and a [sense of] purpose [and] belonging, then you’re going to thrive and you’re going to have a sense of drive to make sure that you uphold that to the highest of standards.”