- author, Becky Morton
- Role, Political Correspondent
-
Nigel Farage has been elected to the British Parliament for the first time, on a night that saw the UK’s Reform Party secure more than four million votes.
The party is expected to become the third largest party in the UK in terms of vote share, having won four seats so far.
Mr Farage overturned a Conservative majority of more than 25,000 votes to secure a comfortable victory in Clutton, Essex – his eighth attempt to enter the Commons.
The result, he said, was “the first step towards something that will blow you all away.”
The Reform Party also took Great Yarmouth, Boston and Skegness from the Conservatives, while former Conservative MP Lee Anderson – who defected to the Reform Party in March – retained Ashfield in Nottinghamshire.
The party enjoyed strong support in areas where the Conservatives won in 2019 under Boris Johnson, coming second in many constituencies.
Speaking to reporters after the result, Mr Farage said it was “the beginning of the end for the Conservative Party”.
In his victory speech, Farage took aim at the party further, saying: “There is a huge gap on the centre-right in British politics and my job is to fill that gap.”
Mr Farage said the reform would “now target Labour votes”.
“The interesting thing is that there is no enthusiasm for Labour, there is no enthusiasm for Starmer at all,” he continued. “In fact, about half the votes are simply anti-Conservative votes.
“We are coming to the Labour Party, there is no doubt about it.”
He has previously said he aims to make Reform the main opposition to Labour by the next election.
An earlier opinion poll conducted by radio and television stations had predicted that the party would win 13 seats in parliament, a number greater than many opinion polls had predicted during the campaign.
However, the number was highly uncertain, as the model indicated that there were many places where the party’s chances of winning were relatively low.
Pollster Sir John Curtice said the Reform Party had benefited from a significant drop in the Conservative vote in seats the party previously held, as well as gains in areas where people voted Leave in the 2016 referendum.
In all four seats won by Reform, more than 70% of people voted to leave the EU.
UK Reform Party leader Richard Teece has overturned a 27,402-vote majority for the Conservatives to win Boston and Skegness.
Meanwhile, in Great Yarmouth, businessman and former Southampton chairman Robert Lowe beat the Labour candidate by 1,426 votes, with the Conservatives dropping to third.
In an early sign that the reform movement was winning over former Conservative voters, the first two results of the night in north-east England – in Blyth and Ashington and in Houghton and Sunderland South – showed the party beating the Conservatives by more than 4,000 votes.
The same pattern was repeated in a number of other seats, where the Conservative Party’s share of the vote fell.
However, the reform had less success in winning seats than Labour.
In Barnsley North, where the poll had predicted a 99% chance of winning the seat, Labour retained the seat with an increased majority of 7,811 votes.
In Hartlepool, another seat expected to go to Reform, Labour also retained a comfortable majority of 7,698 votes.
At the same time, he took over as leader of the Reform Party from Mr. Tice, and played a prominent role in the party’s campaign.
The former leader of the UK Independence Party and the Brexit Party has stood unsuccessfully for a seat in Parliament seven times, most recently in South Thanet, Kent, at the 2015 general election, when he came second behind the Conservative candidate.
Clutton was the first constituency to elect a UKIP MP in 2014, after former Conservative MP Douglas Carswell defected to the party and caused a by-election which he won.
In 2019, the Brexit Party, a former reform party, stood aside in more than 300 seats previously won by the Conservatives, amid fears that it could split the pro-Brexit vote.
But this time the party is contesting 630 seats across England, Scotland and Wales.
Presenting a nearly complete list of candidates in Great Britain was a challenge for the party.
The Reform Movement has had to disown six of them over offensive comments since nominations closed.
The party blamed the surprise announcement of an election in July, as well as its claim that the company it hired to conduct background checks on potential candidates failed to do the checks before calling the election.
But it was too late to remove any of these candidates, so they appeared on the party’s ballots.
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