Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit activist and serial disruptor of British politics, announced on Monday his plans to stand as a candidate in next month’s British general election, dealing a further blow to the prospects of the country’s embattled Prime Minister Rishi. Sunak.
The surprise announcement by Farage, who represents a far-right insurgent movement campaigning to curb immigration, threatens to upend the campaign by taking votes away from Britain’s ruling Conservative Party. In doing so, it could make it even harder for Sunak and his party to close a double-digit gap in the polls with the opposition Labor Party.
Divisive, charismatic and famous for his communication skills, Farage was one of the architects of Brexit, which a slim majority of Britons supported in a 2016 referendum. Some analysts thought that an earlier decision by Farage not to run this year had undermined the boost his party, Reform UK, the successor to the Brexit Party he once led.
Farage said last month that he would not seek a parliamentary seat because he wanted to prioritize supporting Donald J. Trump’s election campaign in the United States. Farage is a long-time ally of the former president and campaigned for him in 2016 and 2020.
But on Monday, Farage reversed his decision and said he would take over as leader of Reform UK for the next five years and run for a seat in Parliament.
“I changed my mind; it’s allowed, you know,” he said. “I’m going to run for this election.” He added that he would appear in Clacton, a coastal area where support for Brexit has been strong.
The announcement comes on the eve of one of the biggest events of the British general election campaign so far: a televised debate Tuesday night between Sunak and Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labor Party.
Sunak is already under significant pressure, with his Conservative Party trailing badly in opinion polls and after a gaffe-prone start to the campaign.
Farage’s change of heart could worsen the prime minister’s prospects because, analysts say, Reform UK threatens to take a significant number of votes away from the Conservatives. Until now, much of Sunak’s election strategy appeared to have been aimed at winning back potential Reform UK supporters, motivating his core right-wing voters to go to the polls and avoiding a major defeat.
But on Monday Farage claimed the Conservatives were destined to be swept away by a wave of disdain for the political establishment and were “on the verge of total collapse”.
Despite Farage’s profile and popularity on the right of British politics, electoral success in Clacton, where he plans to run, is not guaranteed. He has never been elected to the British Parliament at Westminster despite seven previous attempts, although he was a member of the European Parliament for two decades before Britain left the European Union.
Under Britain’s winner-take-all electoral system, candidates from smaller parties fight because they need to secure the largest share of votes in the area they seek to represent.
However, Farage appears to have calculated that he has a chance of victory in Clacton, a staunchly pro-Brexit town about 80 miles northeast of London. He was once represented by a lawmaker from the UK Independence Party, which Farage also once led and which campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union.
With the Conservatives slipping in opinion polls, Farage has been increasingly vocal in predicting a significant defeat for Sunak’s party, even speculating that it could be on the scale of what Canada’s Progressive Conservatives suffered in 1993.
In an interview with The Sunday Times of London over the weekend, Farage said he had named his party Reform UK after the Canadian insurgent party of the same name.
“It took them time, it took them two elections, they became the largest center-right party. “Then they absorbed what was left of the Conservative Party and changed their name,” he said.
Asked if he was suggesting a merger between Reform UK and the Conservatives, Farage replied: “More like a takeover, dear boy.”
Farage has admirers on the right of the Conservative Party, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former cabinet minister who has even called for Farage to be invited to run as a Conservative lawmaker.
Since 2016, Farage has been vocal in his support for Trump, and last week described the convictions against him for 34 felonies as a “disgrace.”
In the 2019 general election, the Brexit Party did not field candidates in many parliamentary constituencies. That was to help Boris Johnson, a former leader of the Conservative Party, whose election promise was that he would “get Brexit done” and who won a big election victory.
But Richard Tice, leader of Reform UK until Farage replaced him on Monday, has said there will be no repeat of that deal and has vowed to fight the Conservatives in England, Scotland and Wales.