Nigel Farage to stand for Reform UK in general election U-turn
Nigel Farage has announced that he will stand at the general election for Reform UK after weeks of insisting that he had no plans to run in what is a significant blow to the Conservative campaign.
The former Ukip and Brexit party leader said he would stand in Clacton, Essex, after changing his mind while spending time on the campaign trail, adding that he did not want to let his supporters down.
Farage, who takes over as leader of Reform UK from Richard Tice, pledged to stay in post for the next five years, raising the spectre of him antagonising the Tories as they descend into a post-election battle for the soul of the party.
At a news conference in central London, the rightwinger said that he had witnessed “a rejection of the political class going on in this country in a way that has not been seen in modern times”.
He told reporters that he wanted to lead a “political revolt”, adding: “Yes, a revolt. A turning of our backs on the political status quo. It doesn’t work. Nothing in this country works any more.”
Farage’s bid to win in Clacton, which was the first to elect a Ukip MP in 2014 and has a Tory majority of 25,702, will be his eighth attempt to enter parliament. He has failed on each of the previous seven occasions.
He suggested that Reform UK could take more than the 3.9m votes that Ukip won at the 2015 general election, ahead of the Brexit referendum, and could even win some seats, although he acknowledged that it would be a hard challenge under proportional representation.
Reform UK is aiming to hive off votes from the Conservatives’ right flank, potentially splitting the vote in some marginal seats and allowing Labour through the middle.
A Tory spokesperson said: “Farage knows that Reform won’t win any seats, but he doesn’t seem to care that a vote for Reform only helps Labour. He’s doing exactly what Keir Starmer wants him to do.”
“They are split down the middle on policy, and frankly right now they don’t stand for a damn thing,” Farage said of the Tory party. “So our aim in this election is to get many, many millions of votes. I’m talking far more votes than Ukip got back in 2015.”
However, the return of the right wing firebrand, who is close to the US presidential candidate, Donald Trump, to frontline politics will alarm even moderate Conservatives. In an indication of the type of campaign he will run, Farage described the UK contest as the “immigration election”.
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After the Guardian revealed Reform UK’s difficult financial position, Farage said the party had started to get some “serious money” since last week and predicted more donations would follow. The former Tory donor, Charlie Mullins, was at the press event.
Farage declined to say whether the candidate selected by Reform to run in Clacton, Anthony Mack, was only now finding out that Farage would be replacing him. “He knew this was a possibility six months ago,” he said.
The new Reform UK leader also deflected questions about whether his party’s members had been ignored by a backroom deal which has led to Tice being replaced. “Sometimes tough things have to be done,” he said.