Nigel Farage has declared he will stand to be a Reform MP as he takes over as Reform leader from Richard Tice. The Mail has more.
The Brexit champion announced the U-turn at a press conference alongside previous leader Richard Tice.
As well as taking the helm of the party, he dropped the bombshell saying that he will run for Parliament in Clacton.
Mr. Farage said he was back “for the next five years” – making clear he wants to dismantle the Tories “when they are in Opposition” after the election.
He said “not on your nelly” would he do an electoral deal with the Conservatives, predicting that Reform would win more votes.
It is a huge headache for Mr. Sunak as he tries to claw back ground on Labour. A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll this evening put the Tories on 20% backing, only six points ahead of Reform and a massive 26 points behind Keir Starmer’s party.
Mr. Farage acknowledged that it would be “very difficult” to win from scratch in a constituency.
But he said since the snap election was called he had been talking to people on the streets and observed that “there is a rejection of the political class going on in this country in a way that has not been seen in modern times”.
“I rationally thought this was too difficult. I’ve changed my mind because I can’t let down millions of people,” he said.
“Nothing in this country works… we will only recover our position with boldness,” he said. “I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again: I will surprise everybody.”
Explaining his change of heart, Mr. Farage said: “The other thing that really shook me in a way last week were the number of people coming up to me in the street saying ‘Nigel, why aren’t you standing?'”
Richard Tice began the press conference by announcing he was handing over the reins:
How do we turn on the rocket boosters, the turbo chargers, to this campaign? As people know, I wanted Nigel to be able to give as much energy and effort, commitment to this campaign, as he felt able to do. I thought well actually, what I really want to do is to invite Nigel Farage to become leader of Reform U.K.
Explaining his change of mind, Farage said:
Now I stood here, a week ago, and I said look, hands up. I’ve been nonplussed by Rishi calling a short-term election, it doesn’t give me the time to find a constituency, doesn’t give me the time to build up data.
I thought the rational thing to do was not to stand but to do my bit as supporting the party around the country, and for the last week, that is what I’ve been doing. I’ve been travelling all around the country. I’ve had the honour of appearing with Piers Morgan on Question Time amongst other things.
I’ve decided I’ve changed my mind. It’s allowed you know. It’s not always a sign of weakness, it could potentially be a sign of strength.
He added:
Richard is more than happy for me to put my head and shoulders firmly over the parapet and take the flack. So I’m coming back as leader of Reform U.K., but not just for this election campaign. I’m coming back for the next five years.
So our aim in this election is to get many, many millions of votes. And I’m talking far more votes than you got back in 2015 when we when we got four million votes. We’re going to get many, many, many more votes than that.
How many seats in Parliament? Can we win under this system? Well, that’s another matter. And that depends on what momentum we can get from here.
A former Tory Cabinet Minister told the Telegraph that Farage standing as an MP for Reform is “bad news for both major parties, but sadly worse news for the Conservatives”.
This will bring new impetus to the Reform campaign. Farage is arguably the most recognisable figure in British politics apart from the Prime Minister and Boris Johnson. He is an insurgent and will attract votes.
This is bad news for both major parties, but sadly worse news for the Conservatives.
Matthew Goodwin says this is Nigel Farage’s “finest hour” and there are several “open goals” for him in an election campaign that so far has been as “dull as dishwater”:
The palpable anti-Westminster mood. The genuine panic about how to afford life. The creeping sense of despair about mass immigration. The intense anger about our broken borders. The spiralling concern about lawlessness and crime. The rising fear about a dark new sectarianism. The visible erosion of British values and ways of life – particularly since October 7th. And, on top of all that, the deep, unyielding sense of pessimism about where all this is heading – about where this country of ours is heading, about where this place we call home is heading. …
Farage has realised this; many other politicians have not. He has grasped that many people want to have a very different kind of conversation about where we are heading as a society; they have not. He might be criticised by broadcast interviewers and BBC newsreaders as “inflammatory” and at times he certainly is; but already in the opening days of this campaign he’s tapped into this much deeper sense of unease among the British people, this legitimate sense of unease, about what is now unfolding before them.
Can Britain – our shared history, collective memory, identity, values, and ways of life – actually survive in a form that we recognise, respect and want to pass down to our children and their children? How can a national community hold itself together while undergoing unprecedented demographic change, persistent economic decline, and a ruling elite that routinely downplays or derides, rather than defend, who we are?
And who out there, exactly, is willing to push back, seriously, against the growing assortment of radicals and extremists who very clearly loathe who we are, who have no interest in respecting our ways of life? Nigel Farage does not have the answers to these questions. But he is at least willing to talk openly about them. And that in itself gives him an enormous opening.
Stop Press: Can Farage win in Clacton? In 2014, after defecting to UKIP, Douglas Carswell triggered a by-election in Clacton and won. He contested the seat for UKIP in 2015 and won again with 19,642 votes. He was replaced as the UKIP candidate by Paul Oakley in 2017, who only polled 3,357 votes and lost to Giles Watling, the Conservative candidate, who polled 27,031, then held the seat two years later with 31,438. However, the consensus of pollsters, such as James Johnson, is that Farage will win. That’s also the view of the bookies.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.