After years of failed attempts, Nigel Farage has managed to win a seat in the British Parliament. In his victory speech, the leader of the reformists promised to oppose the Labour Party.
The eighth was for good. After trying (and failing) seven times, Nigel Farage finally managed to achieve his goal of winning a seat in the UK House of Commons. The leader of the reformists (Reform UK), the party that won its first mandates in this election, won in the Clacton-on-Sea constituency, an area where he was seen walking all day and where he was even caught eating an ice cream.
In his victory speech, which will see him sit in the British Parliament for the first time, Nigel Farage promised to do “the best” in his new role, but also for Clacton – namely putting the region on the “map” by attracting more tourists and more “private investment”. The former MEP also predicted that the UK government, which will be Labour, “is going to be in trouble very, very soon” and said that reform would fill the “vacuum” in the British centre-right. “We are going after Labour, make no mistake about it… “This is just the first step of something that will surprise you all,” he said.
“This is just the first step of something that will surprise everyone”
UK reform leader Nigel Farage celebrates victory in Clacton, becoming an MP for the first time at the eighth attempt.#BBCElection live https://t.co/C23maKmqbp pic.twitter.com/4HHBKbMnKS
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) July 5, 2024
Moments earlier, as he arrived at the polling station where the results would be announced, the pledge to go after Labour had already been made, according to The Guardian. In addition, Nigel Farage said that the election of Lee Anderson, a former Conservative MP who was the first MP elected by the reformists, was given a mandate because he “defected” (something other Conservatives would not have done).
Reform won its first mandate in Ashfield with the victory of Lee Anderson, who went on to represent Farage’s party after the Conservatives suspended him for refusing to apologise when he claimed Islamists were in control of London council chairman Sadiq Khan.
Hours before the results began to be known, in a first reaction to the exit polls that already anticipated that he would be elected and that his party could obtain up to 13 deputies (a significant increase), Farage spoke of a “rebellion against establishment” and said the results would be better than the projections: “It’s almost unbelievable. We’re going to gain many, many places.”
in the message shared on social networkNigel Farage also criticised the media, saying it was “comical” that no representatives of his party appeared on television covering the general election. “The media conventional They are in denial, just like the political parties,” said the leader of the reformists.
The revolt against the establishment is underway. pic.twitter.com/xB7DQuvXWT
-Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) July 4, 2024
In recent decades, Nigel Farage has emerged in British politics as an anti-European voice and played a major role in the Brexit vote. In 2016, he took part in Donald Trump’s election campaign for the North American presidential election, being introduced to thousands of people at a rally in Mississippi as “Mr. Brexit”.
According to Sky News, Farage was a member of the Conservatives, but left them in 1992 (at the age of 28) because he disagreed with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty and the “ever closer union” that the document called for. The following year, he helped found the UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party).
If he had difficulty getting elected in the British elections, the same does not seem to have happened in those in which voters voted for European positions. Farage was a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2020, maintaining a critical voice towards the European Union.
More recently, he had his own show on the GB News channel, which he left to focus on the British general election. Outside of politics, Farage, 60, took part in the reality show The Daily Beast in 2023. I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Hereoccupying, according to The Telegraph, third place.
From being a “friend of Putin” to accusations of racism: the controversies of Farage’s campaign
Source: Observadora
