Nigel Farage has electrified the general election campaign, taking over Reform UK and launching a bid to become an MP in Tory-held Clacton.
In a major blow for Rishi Sunak’s electoral hopes, the former UKIP leader confirmed he has changed his mind and decided to contest the general election.
Mr Farage also returned as leader of Reform UK, promising to serve for five years alongside the Conservatives in opposition.
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Explaining his bid to become an MP, as first revealed exclusively by The Independent, Mr Farage said he could not let down “millions of people” who had supported his past political projects.
At what he dubbed an emergency press conference, he added: “Something is happening out there.
“There is a rejection of the political class going on in this country in a way that has not been seen in modern times.”
Mr Farage is taking a risk because he has never won a parliamentary seats after seven attempts. He has though won European Parliament national elections as the leader of Ukip and the Brexit Paty (now Reform UK).
On Monday he said he has only stood once “in earnest”, a time he said the Conservatives cheated. “All the previous times it was as a pressure group to raise the profile of why we believed leaving the EU made sense when nobody else in parliament was saying it,” he said.
He also declared that Labour has already won the election and there is “not a contest” between Mr Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. And he said Reform believes the current general election campaign is “the dullest, most boring election we have ever seen”. “We think this election needs a bit of gingering up,” he added.
Setting out Reform’s longer-term ambitions, Mr Farage said they would form the opposition in the next parliament and be the biggest party at the general election in 2029. “That is the ambition, simple as that,” he added.