Nigel Farage on Monday announced that he would return to frontline British politics as leader of the Reform party and run for a seat in the election next month, scrapping his previously stated position of skipping the race in order to focus on supporting Donald Trump.
“I’ve changed my mind, it is allowed, you know!” Farage told a hastily arranged press conference. He said he will remain leader for the next five years in order to hold the expected Labour government to account.
“I genuinely believe we can get more votes in this election than the Conservative Party. They are on the verge of total collapse and it couldn’t happen—frankly—to nicer people,” he said.
The GB News host has previously made seven failed attempts to win a U.K. parliamentary seat. He will run for the constituency of Clacton in Essex, south-east England. He nevertheless played a major role campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union and his populist, anti-immigration Brexit Party—now known as Reform UK—is considered a threat to the incumbent Conservative government by potentially dividing the vote on the right and aiding the left-wing Labour Party’s return to power.
Farage, who no longer leads Reform UK but serves as its honorary president, last month said he would support the party in the British election but would not personally contest a seat.
“Important though the general election is, the contest in the United States of America on November 5 has huge global significance,” Farage said in a statement announcing his now defunct decision not to stand. “A strong America as a close ally is vital for our peace and security. I intend to help with the grassroots campaign in the USA in any way I can.”
Farage campaigned for Trump in 2020 and interviewed him at Mar-a-Lago in March. Last week, Farage denied that he’d been offered a job by Trump after saying in May he’d received a “firm” offer for an unspecified role in the U.S. that would make him “heavily involved with the election campaign.”
