Nigel Farage will be taking over Reform UK, the party formerly known as the Brexit Party which he founded, a move outgoing leader Richard Tice said should “turbo boost” the party in the forthcoming July general election.
Reform UK leader Richard Tice has handed the reigns of the party to Brexiteer Nigel Farage, who announced he has changed his mind on not standing for election in July’s nationwide vote. In the shakeup, Farage will become Reform UK’s party leader and businessman Richard Tice will move to a chairman role.
Farage told an audience in London on Monday afternoon that he’d reached the conclusion while out fishing on Sunday and after meeting large numbers of voters while out campaigning over the past week, who repeatedly told him how disappointed they were he’d initially said he wouldn’t stand in order to concentrate on promoting the party nationally. He said: “I’ve changed my mind. It’s allowed you know, it isn’t always a weakness, it can be a sign of strength. So I am going to stand in this election, and I am going to launch my candidacy at midday tomorrow in the Essex seaside town of Clacton, at the end of the pier.”
On the reasons for the change, Farage said:
…I thought the rational thing was not to stand but to do my bit as it were, supporting the [party around the country]. And the last week that’s what I’ve been doing… I’ve been on the streets meeting an awful lot of people, and interestingly an awful lot of young people.
You won’t have got this yet, the pollsters won’t have picked this up yet, but after 30 years of experience in this game, 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. But the other thing that really shook me last week was the number of people coming up to me in the street saying ‘Nigel, why aren’t you standing’. And I gave my rational, logical reasons for it… but I couldn’t help feeling after each exchange that somehow they felt I was letting them down, that I wasn’t standing up for these people. People in their millions who have stood with me, in some cases, for many years.
Farage revealed he would be leader for at least five years and said the plan was about much more than just the coming election, but was about building momentum for the next election in five years time, to become the opposition party and eventually form a government. “Our aim in this election is to get many, many millions of votes. And I’m talking far more votes than UKIP got in 2015, when we got four million votes”, he said.
The Farage candidacy is also evidently part of Reform UK’s campaigning on 2024 being the “immigration election”, in which the incoming leader dismissed concerns that his boosting Reform would benefit Labour and damage the Conservatives. Quite apart from the old UKIP having taken more votes from the left than right, he said, Farage pointed out the Conservatives were owed absolutely no loyalty and totally deserved the drubbing coming to them.
He said: “it was the Labour Party that opened the door, and who would have believed that a Conservative Party would have accelerated it… 2.4 million people this Conservative Government has allowed to settle in the UK over the course of the last two years… a massive betrayal of 17.4 million people who voted Brexit. They voted yes to get back our indepenedence, but they absolutely voted to get back control of our borders.”
This story is developing, more follows…
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