Nigel Farage announced his candidacy for the UK parliamentary election on Tuesday, drawing a much larger-than-expected crowd of locals to the seafront in his chosen constituency, Clacton.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage stood on a picnic bench outside a fish and chip shop at the entrance to Clacton Pier at midday on Tuesday as he launched his constituency campaign, delivering a typically populist message promising to challenge mainstream Westminster politics if elected.
addressing Speaking to a clearly larger-than-anticipated audience (the sound system Farage’s team brought with them appears not to have been loud enough for everyone to hear him clearly), the Brexiteer leader touched on policy points and widely felt cultural concerns, but also focused on his own record as a persistent political thorn in his side during his time in Brussels. Calling on Clacton residents to make him Leader of the Opposition in the next Labour government, which Farage said was inevitable, the Brexiteer made his sudden return to the forefront of British politics, saying: “Put me in Parliament and be a goddamn nuisance.”
“Whether we like it or not, we’re going to have a Labour government,” Farage said. “The question is, who’s going to voice the opposition? I want my party, Reform UK, to get into Parliament and I promise you I’ll make it a lot more revitalised than it is now.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage enjoys a pint as he launches his general election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (Photo by James Manning/PA Images via Getty Images)
A crowd listens as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage launches his general election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (Photo by James Manning/PA Images via Getty Images)
In forming his opposition party, Mr Farage, who has already said his ultimate aim in this election is to win more votes than the crumbling Conservative Party, told the crowd: “These people [in Westminster] You people in Clacton are not like you, they are not genuinely patriotic people, they don’t believe in Britain and British people like you do… We want to be a voice in Westminster that truly believes in Britain and doesn’t want to poison the minds of our children, that tells them to be proud of our country, proud to be British and optimistic.”
The poisoning of children’s minds was not the only culture war touchstone in Farage’s speech: “One thing I know is that women can’t have penises,” he told the rally, drawing loud laughter and applause.
Mr Farage and his party colleague Richard Tice, who was Reform UK leader until yesterday, went for a pint at a local branch of Wetherspoons, the national pub chain owned by Brexit supporter Sir Tim Martin.
As previously reported, Farage has struggled to get elected to Parliament in the past, but pollsters reacted immediately and generally positively to the news yesterday that he would, in fact, make a surprise run in the election. “To those of you texting me asking if Nigel Farage will win Clacton: Yes, Nigel Farage will win Clacton,” James Johnson, a former Conservative pollster and co-founder of research firm JL Partners, said on Monday. “To those of you who are texting me asking if Nigel Farage will win Clacton: Yes, Nigel Farage will win Clacton.”
Farage last ran for parliament in 2015, narrowly losing his Thanet constituency to the Conservatives. The election was subsequently taken to court over allegations that the Conservatives had spent heavily in the constituency to keep Farage out of parliament, and a Conservative campaign agent was arrested. He was found guilty and given a fine and a suspended sentence.
(Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)
(Photo: Carl Cote/Getty Images)
A person holds a sign displaying betting company odds that Nigel Farage, the new leader of the British right-wing populist party Reform UK and its parliamentary candidate for Clacton, will win, during Farage’s election campaign launch in Clacton-on-Sea, eastern England, on June 4, 2024. Nigel Farage said on Monday he would run for the anti-immigration Reform UK candidate in next month’s UK general election after initially denying he would run. “I’ve changed my mind… I’m standing,” Farage, 60, told a news conference. He will stand in the strongly pro-Brexit constituency of Clacton in southeast England on July 4. (Photo by Ben Stansall/AFP) (Photo by Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
(Photo by BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)
