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The Conservative Party’s faltering election campaign suffered a potentially damaging blow when Nigel Farage announced that he intends to run for parliament and will lead the Reform Party for the next five years.
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. He claims he doesn’t want to let his supporters down.
Farage will also take over as leader of Reform United Kingdom by Richard Tice, promising to remain in office for a full parliamentary term.
While his statement poses an immediate threat to the Tory candidate in Clacton, it could also boost his party’s national campaign, splitting the right-wing vote in other constituencies.
It also raises the specter of Farage defying the Tories as they descend into a post-election battle for the soul of their party.
Farage’s bid to win in Clacton, which was the first to elect a Ukip MP in 2014 and has a Tory majority of 24,702, would be his eighth attempt to enter parliament. He failed in each of the previous seven cases.
In a further blow to Sunak, YouGov’s first MRP constituency forecast, before Farage’s announcement, showed Keir Starmer could win a majority of 194, bigger even than Tony Blair’s 179 majority in 1997.
It put Labor on 422 seats (+222 from the 2019 election, based on new constituency boundaries), the Tories on 140 (-232), the Lib Dems on 48 (+40) and the SNP on 17 (-31) . One senior Tory described Farage’s return as an “existential” risk.
At a press conference in central London, the right-winger said he had witnessed a “rejection of the political class” across the country in a way not seen in modern times and that he wanted to lead a “political rebellion”.
He also sought to describe Reform UK’s surge as part of what he described as a “new phenomenon” ahead of this weekend’s European Parliament elections, when far-right parties are expected to perform well. “I promise you there’s something going on there,” he said.
His decision will mean the immigration debate will become even more important during the campaign.
On Tuesday, the Tories will announce an annual cap on the number of visas issued to reduce overall migration. The figure will be recommended by the migration advisory committee before being put to MPs for a vote.
Starmer, meanwhile, will continue to focus on national security, pledging that Labor will “shut the door on Putin” by reducing Britain’s dependence on foreign fossil fuels.
On Tuesday, he will say the party’s plan to create GB Energy – a public clean energy company – will help protect the UK from fuel price rises such as those that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Farage was expected to choose to stand in either Clacton or Thanet East in Kent, which includes much of the old constituency where he made two unsuccessful bids to become an MP in 2015 and 2005.
But Clacton now looks a better bet for Reform UK, although Tory candidate Giles Watling, who backed Remain, is defending a majority of 24,702.
Farage suggested Reform UK could take more than the 3.9 million votes Ukip won in the 2015 general election, ahead of the Brexit referendum, and could even win some seats, although he admitted it would be more -difficult without proportional representation.
A reformed UK is looking to take votes from the right wing of the Conservatives, potentially splitting votes in some marginal seats and allowing Labor to cross the middle.
“They are split down the middle on policy and frankly they don’t stand for anything at the moment,” Farage said of the Tory party. “So our goal in this election is to win many, many millions of votes. I’m talking about many more votes than Ukip got in 2015.
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However, the return of the right-wing arsonist, who is close to US presidential candidate Donald Trump, to the front lines of politics will alarm even moderate conservatives. In an indication of the type of campaign he will run, Farage described the UK race as an “immigration election”.
Tory MPs have warned that a surge in UK reforms could see the party drift further to the right to try to win back support, with tougher rhetoric on the party’s Rwanda plan and even a promise to leave the European Convention for human rights.
“It probably makes it more likely that we’ll have a stupid, full-blown ‘leaving the ECHR policy’ in the manifesto,” said one candidate. “It’s attractive to one end of the market and really unattractive to the other. We have to remain attractive to both.”
They were unhappy about the impact of the reforms on the Tories’ electoral chances. “It probably just locks in the worst-case scenario with reform and means it’s very difficult for the Tories to make as much of a breakthrough as we need to make to be on better ground.”
Another said Farage’s decision was a “big blow” to Sunak. “He will undoubtedly have an impact on both campaigns – but probably more on the Conservatives. Reform was always going to gnaw at the age of the Conservative vote, but now their inroads will be greater.
It also reinforced the view among some Tories that Sunak’s decision to call the election for July 4 rather than the autumn, when Farage would likely be in the US supporting the Trump campaign, was a mistake.
A Tory candidate said: “The Prime Minister’s decision was really stupid – and obviously really stupid. Your whole job is that the Tories are about stability and the economy will improve, and then you call an election before anyone notices.
“I just find it inexplicable. It was [deputy prime minister Oliver] Dowden’s argument won, which was that it would get worse. Well, show me how.
The return of the former Brexit party leader now also opens the door for disaffected former Tory donors to open their wallets, with Farage saying the party has started receiving some “serious money” since last week.
Among those gathered at the Reform UK press conference were property developer Nick Candy, who has previously donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Tories, and Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins.
The new leader of Reform UK deflected questions about whether members of his party had been ignored by a backroom deal that led to Tice’s replacement. “Sometimes hard things have to be done,” he said.
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