UK Independence Party leader Paul Nuttall has confirmed he will stand in Britain’s upcoming snap election on 8 June.
Merseyside-born Nuttall had previously been accused of trying to avoid the question of whether or not he would make a direct run at a Parliamentary seat this year. On Saturday, he confirmed will be standing for the constituency of Boston and Skegness, where UKIP surged to second place in 2015 with a 24.3 per cent swing.
Announcing his candidacy in a press release, the UKIP leader said it was “a great honour and a privilege to stand for UKIP in Boston and Skegness”.
He recalled: “The constituency voted overwhelmingly for Leave inspired in part by the massive betrayal of our fishing industry by successive Governments, something that today’s Conservative Party led by Theresa May looks set to repeat.”
Boston did, in fact, record the highest Leave vote in the United Kingdom during the 2016 referendum on EU membership, with 75.6 per cent of voters backing Brexit on a turnout of 77.2 per cent.
Nuttall promised to make it his “mission to stand up for the people of Boston and Skegness and ensure there is no backsliding on Brexit”.
Sue Blackburn, who chairs UKIP’s local branch in Boston and Skegness branch, added: “As Branch Chairman, I would like to say on behalf of the Boston and Skegness branch how delighted we are to have our leader standing in this election and Paul will have the utmost support of this branch.”
Nuttall previously contested the constituency of Stoke-on-Trent Central in a by-election on 23 February 2017, achieving a slight swing of 2.1 per cent but ultimately losing out to Labour candidate Garreth Snell by 7,853 votes to 5,233.
UKIP faces extremely difficult polling as it heads into the election, with support down from 12.7 per cent in the 2015 general election to a low of 4 per cent, according to Ipsos MORI.