Pictures: Farage's Seaside Campaign Launch Draws Crowds

Nigel Farage launched his bid to be elected to Britain’s national Parliament on Tuesday, drawing a clearly larger-than-expected crowd of locals at the seafront in his chosen constituency of Clacton.

The leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage stood on a picnic bench outside a Fish & Chip shop at the entrance to Clacton Pier to launch his election campaign in the seat midday Tuesday, delivering a classic populist message promising to oppose the political mainstream in Westminster if elected.

Addressing a clearly larger than expected crowd — the sound system brought by Farage’s team apparently wasn’t loud enough for Farage to be heard clearly by all who came — the Brexit leader hit on points of policy and widely felt areas of concern on culture, but focussed on his personal track record of having been an effective thorn-in-the-side to the political establishment during his time in Brussels. Appealing to the people of Clacton to make him the leader of the opposition to the coming Labour government, which Farage said is inevitable, the Brexiteer said in his surprise return to frontline UK politics: “send me to parliament to be a bloody nuisance”.

“Whether you like it or not we’re going to get a Labour government”, Farage said, continuing: “The question is, who is going to be the voice of opposition? And I want Reform UK, with me at the helm, to be in Parliament, and I promise you I’ll liven it up a lot from what it currently is” .

On forming that opposition — Farage has already said his stretch-goal for this election is to get more votes than the cratering Conservatives — he told the crowd: “these people [in Westminster] unlike you in Clacton are not genuinely patriotic people, they don’t believe in Britain and the British people the way you do… we want to put voices in Westminster that truly believe in Britain, do not want the minds of our kids being poisoned, telling them they can be proud of this country, proud to be British, and being optimistic.”

Children’s minds being poisoned was not the only culture war touchstone for Farage in his address, and he received a roar of laughter and applause after telling the rally that: “I do know one thing, that a woman cannot have a penis.”

Farage and party colleage Richard Tice, who had been the Reform UK leader until yesterday, repaired to the local branch of Wetherspoons — the nationwide pub chain owned by Brexiteer Sir Tim Martin — for a pint of beer.

As previously reported, while Farage has had a rocky time with being elected to Parliament in the past, pollsters immediately reacted to the news that he would in fact be making a surprise bid to be elected yesterday generally positively. Former Tory pollster and co-founder of the JL Partners research firm, James Johnson said on Monday: “To those texting me asking if Nigel Farage will win Clacton. Yes, Nigel Farage will win Clacton.”

Farage’s last attempt to enter Parliament was in 2015, when he stood in Thanet, where he suffered a narrow defeat to the Conservatives. The election later went to court over allegations the Conservatives had massively overspent in the seat to keep Mr Farage out of Parliament, and a Tory election agent was found guilty, fined, and handed a suspended sentence.