What are Reform UK’s chances now Nigel Farage has ducked the election?
The IndependentNigel Farage, the founder and owner of Reform UK, the rebranded Brexit Party, has announced he will not be standing for parliament in this election. After five unsuccessful general election attempts and two by-elections, he said: “I will do my bit to help in the campaign, but it is not the right time for me to go any further than that.” He dutifully said that “only Reform have the radical agenda that is needed to end decline in this country”, but ending decline in Britain was less important to him than “the contest in the United States of America” – a contest that, traditionally, does not really get going until Labor Day, 2 September, let alone Independence Day, 4 July. As Alan Wager, a political analyst, has pointed out, Farage’s previous party, Ukip, was polling about 10 per cent in the week before Theresa May called the 2017 election. During the campaign, Ukip’s support declined to 3 per cent, and it ended up winning 2 per cent of the vote on election day. The Ukip candidate won 34 per cent of the vote there in 2015, but slumped to 8 per cent two years later, and the Brexit Party didn’t contest the seat in the last election.