Nigel Farage announced his return to politics this afternoon, telling a packed room of journalists he was ready to front a “political revolt”.
Confirming he was taking over as leader of Reform UK from Richard Tice, the 60-year-old said the General Election needed to be “gingered up”, declaring it "the dullest, most boring election campaign we have ever seen in our lives".
He confirmed his intention to stand to be the MP for Clacton - a constituency won by the Conservatives in 2019.
The announcement marks a U-turn for the former Ukip leader who last week told GB News that he would not be seeking a House of Commons seat after having been “wrong footed” by Rishi Sunak’s decision to call a snap election.
Farage said he felt as though he was 'letting people down' when he initially opted not to stand
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Farage said he would be “back for the next five years” as he sought to put pressure on the Prime Minister.
He said he wanted to lead a “political revolt”, adding: “Yes, a revolt. A turning of our backs on the political status quo. It doesn’t work. Nothing in this country works any more.”
“Our aim at this election is to get many, many millions of votes", he declared.
“I am talking far more than what UKIP got in 2015, when we got four million. We are going to get many, many, many more votes than that.
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Farage declared to 'surprise everybody'
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“How many seats can we get in Parliament under this system? That is another matter. That depends on what momentum we can get from here.
“What people start to realise in the Red Wall, with Reform second to Labour, when they start to realise that actually in those seats that it’s a Conservative vote that is a vote for Labour, that it’s a Conservative vote that is a wasted vote, then I think we might just surprise everybody.
“I know you think our votes will come from the Conservatives and they will get crushed, believe me, this party needs no help in being crushed, it has crushed itself already.
“Those who already say they will vote Reform, very few of them will go back to the Conservatives even if we stood down."
Farage then had a message for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who he feels will be the next prime minister.
“We are appealing to Conservative voters, we are appealing to Labour voters, and those commentators who are longer in the tooth might remember that in 2015 against all predictions we took more votes from the Labour Party than we did from the Conservatives", he said.
“Keir Starmer may win, but we’re absolutely going to make sure that his percentage is a lot lower than it is now.”
Asked by GB News Political Editor Christopher Hope about his seven previous failed attempts to win a seat in Parliament, Farage sought to defend his record.
Richard Tice has handed over the reins
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“I only stood once in earnest, all the previous times were as a pressure group to raise the profile of why we believed leaving the EU made sense when no one else in Parliament was saying it”, he said.
“I did stand that one time and I did lose. I don’t mind losing, but when they cheat, so much so that one of the party agents gets a nine-month prison sentence, you can perhaps understand why I’m not that friendly with the Tory party.
“All this ‘are you going to do a deal with the Tories?’, not on your Nelly will I be doing that.”
“It’s very difficult in the space of a few weeks, from scratch, for me of all people given what they will throw at me to win a Parliamentary constituency.
Rishi Sunak refused to elaborate on whether he 'fears' going up against Nigel Farage
PA“I repeat the point I made. I can’t turn my back on the people’s army and the millions of people who followed me, believed in me, despite all the horrendous things that were said about me. They are still there.
“You can add to that a younger cohort. I said earlier that something is going on. We haven’t spent a bean on Facebook, pushes or advertising and yet the top 50 most liked posts on Facebook in the first week of the campaign, 32 are Reform.
“Even the Today programme doing a feature on TikTok this morning, the amount of young people saying ‘vote Reform’, we’re not putting money into it, this is happening organically.
“Something remarkable is going on. One prediction I will make is, we will get many more votes than the four million Ukip got in 2015.”
Asked by Sky News earlier today whether he “fears” the prospect of Farage standing, Rishi Sunak reaffirmed his belief that it will be either him or Starmer as next prime minister.
“A vote for anyone who is not a Conservative candidate is just a vote to put Keir Starmer in Downing Street”, he said.
