LONDON: The well-known Brexit figurehead politician Nigel Farage announced on Monday that he plans to stand for the general election in the United Kingdom. The general election is scheduled to take place next month and the major U-turn threatens to split the right-wing vote and further imperil the beleaguered Conservative Party.

Farage, who is now 60-years-old, says he will run for the anti-immigration Reform UK Party, in a ‘eurosceptic’ seat in the southeast of England. He announced his plans to contest the polls, less than two weeks after ruling himself out of the July 4 contest. He will also return as party leader.

The populist ex-member of the European Parliament (MEP), who has failed on seven previous attempts to be elected to the UK parliament, says he changed his mind ‘after hearing from voters’.

His decision may divert key votes away from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s embattled Tories in numerous seats, and could help the Labour opposition seize power for the first time since 2010.

Farage, who is a ‘longtime vocal supporter’ of the former US president Donald Trump, was ‘unapologetic’ and insisted that his party could become the UK’s foremost opposition.

“What I’m really calling for, and what I intend to lead, is a political revolt, a turning of our backs on the political status quo” he said at a press conference, in London. “I genuinely believe we can get more votes than the Conservative party,” he added. Farage predicted a Labour landslide and the Tories in a distant second, which ‘would shift in his favour’.

Farage told the ‘Sunday Times’ this weekend that he was eyeing a “takeover” of the Conservatives post the election.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2024