UKIP leader Paul Nuttall has confirmed he will stand for Parliament in the General Election on 8 June.
Mr. Nuttall has so far avoided the question, but now says he will be “leading the party into battle” and would name the seat he will stand in within 48 hours.
“As the leader of the party I will be, obviously, leading the party into battle as I have done many times in the past,” he told LBC radio.
Adding: “We don’t have any safe seats. The other party leaders will visit their constituencies once or twice. If we go for it, we have to live and work in the seat.”
The UKIP leader said he believed the party could do better than they did at the last general election, and win representation in Parliament.
“We learned in 2015 that vote share, while it’s nice to get four million votes, there are no prizes for second place,” he continued. “I would like us to get more MPs elected. I think it is doable. We have got to target our resources sensibly.”
Asked by presenter Iain Dale why he made the decision, Mr. Nuttall denied being “unsure” about whether to run or not. “I wasn’t really unsure, I just had to take a decision as to what the party really needed me to do,” he said.
“I saw what happened with Nigel Farage in 2015 where he spent the majority of his time down in Thanet and I basically had to take the decision as to whether the party needed me roaming the country and geeing up the branches and appearing on the media… it’s quite difficult to do both when you’re the leader of UKIP.”
Just two months ago, in February, Mr. Nuttall stood for Parliament in a by-election in Stoke-on-Trent.
Early polls showed strong support for UKIP in the seat. However, Labour decisively beat them in the final vote.