Nigel Farage, founder and leader of the right-wing party Reform UK, has secured his first seat in the United Kingdom parliament on his eighth attempt.
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Farage, who was formerly a member of the European Parliament, was one of the driving forces behind Britain leaving the European Union, with his party known as the Brexit party, now renamed Reform UK.
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Farage won from Clacton, a town in Essex with the highest number of leave notes during the 2016 Brexit referendum. He won with a 46 per cent vote share, beating the Conservative party, according to Reuters.
After being elected, Farage said, “There is a massive gap on the centre-right of British politics and my job is to fill it, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
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He added, “Believe me folks, this is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you”.
Farage had failed seven times before to make it to Westminster.
Rishi Sunak of the Conservative party has conceded the election to Keir Starmer of the Labour party after they gained a landslide victory with 409 seats. Farage’s Reform UK managed to win four seats in total – in the East Midlands, Great Yarmouth and Boston & Skegness.
Farage and Reform UK are known for their hard-line politics against immigration, and made that the focus of their campaign. One of his main promises are to ‘stop the boats’ coming from France with immigrants into the UK, which Rishi Sunak has also tried to fulfil.
Polling company Savanta’s Political Research Director Chris Hopkins said this will be a joyous moment for Farage because,“He’s got enough MPs (lawmakers) to make a racket in Westminster, and the party he shares the closest political space with, could be reduced to a long period of soul searching.”