Nigel Farage has won a seat in the UK parliament at the eighth attempt on a strong night for his Reform UK party, as he branded the election TV coverage “almost comical.”
Donald Trump’s pal won in the seaside constituency of Clacton, which was previously a Conservative majority but had in the past elected a candidate from his former party, UKIP.
Farage won with 21,225 votes, comfortably beating the Conservative incumbent, who came second with 12,820.
His victory comes with Reform outperforming expectations, predicted 13 seats by the exit poll, of which it has so far won two, and taking thousands of votes away from Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives in many of its heartlands. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party was predicted a landslide majority by the exit poll and the results so far have shown that things are headed in that direction, but Reform is proving to be one of the big stories of the night.
In a video on X posted a few hours before his win was announced, Farage said “the revolt against the establishment is underway,” as he predicted Reform would win 30% of the vote nationwide, meaning more than 6 million people. In his victory speech several hours later, he said he would “build a mass national movement over the course of the next few years,” positing that there is “no enthusiasm for Labour or Keir Starmer whatsoever.”
The past six weeks have been a raucous, bad-tempered affair for Farage and his party. When Sunak announced the election, the Brexit architect was hosting a GB News show and pledging that he would spend most of the rest of the year in the U.S. helping the Trump campaign. Halfway through, he U-turned, taking the helm of Reform UK and announcing he would run in Clacton, which immediately saw Reform’s poll position shoot sharply upwards.
During the past week, Farage has attacked the BBC and Channel 4, the former over what he deemed audience bias on its Question Time Leaders’ Special, the latter over the claim that Channel 4 paid an actor to spout offensive language during an undercover investigation into Reform UK campaigners. Last night, Ofcom said it would not investigate Channel 4 and the network has firmly stood by its reporting. Meanwhile, Farage’s bad-tempered BBC beef has seen him pledge to boycott appearances on the national broadcaster until it apologizes for bias, but the BBC has denied foul play.
It was perhaps no surprise then that Farage’s X video a few hours ago blasted the TV coverage on election night as “almost comical.” “There’s not a single representative on there from Reform UK. The mainstream media are in denial just as much as our political parties,” he added.
This election is Farage’s eighth attempt at running for parliament across a 30-year period. He has lost the past seven times, at five elections and two by-elections.
