Farage Says He’ll Stand in UK Election in Blow to Sunak’s Tories
Brexit architect says he’ll be candidate for Reform UK Farage to make eighth attempt to win Parliamentary seat

Alex MoralesJune 3, 2024 at 11:22 AM EDT
Nigel FaragePhotographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Brexit architect Nigel Farage said he’ll stand as a candidate for Reform UK in Britain’s July 4 general election, a U-turn that threatens to further undermine Rishi Sunak’s bid to keep his Conservatives in power.

“I’ll be launching my candidacy at midday tomorrow,” Farage said Monday during an impromptu press conference in central London. He said he will be Reform’s candidate in Clacton, the coastal town in eastern England where support for Reform UK and its right-wing predecessors runs relatively strongly.

Farage’s sudden entry is likely to have significant repercussions for Sunak, who has spent the early part of the campaign rolling out policy pledges designed to stem the flow of traditional Conservative voters to Reform. The Tories trail the main opposition Labour Party by more than 20 points, according to a Bloomberg composite based on data from 11 polling companies, and Sunak’s challenge is being exacerbated by the split in the right-wing part of the electorate.

With Sunak distracted on his Tory right flank, Labour leader Keir Starmer is building a campaign around appealing to more centrist voters.

Farage will also take over as leader of Reform UK, replacing Richard Tice, who announced the change on Monday before Farage took to the stage, saying “let’s get some real excitement into that campaign.”

Though Farage, 60, has lost in seven previous attempts to win a parliamentary seat, he nevertheless holds considerable sway in British politics. He kept Westminster guessing for months about whether he would stand in the election, but when Sunak suddenly called a snap vote for July, the move appeared to take Farage off guard. He said the timing was not right and that in any case, he was more focused on helping Donald Trump return to the White House in the fall.

Since then, the Tories have tried to take advantage of Farage’s absence by trying to win back voters from Reform, including by promising to bring back national service for teenagers, a tax guarantee for pensioners and a plan to rewrite the Equality Act to change the definition of “sex” to “biological sex.”

But the polls have not budged and Farage’s delayed entry is a major setback. Introducing him, Tice said Reform UK was “talking about what people want to talk about” and that “this is and must be the immigration election.”

Polling from Survation in January found that the Conservatives would beat Labour into second place in Clacton, with Reform placing third. But when asked the same question and presented with Farage as the Reform UK candidate, voters there said they’d elect him as their Member of Parliament, beating the Conservative incumbent, Giles Watling, into second.

The prospect of Farage front-running in Clacton will be a nightmare for the Tories, who likely hoped the outspoken politician’s impact would be blunted by his earlier comments about being more bothered by the US presidential election.

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