Eighth time lucky. Controversial Nigel Farage, the Brexit profile who leads the right-wing populist Reform Party, has been elected to parliament for the first time.
After seven failed attempts, it is now clear that Farage has been elected to a seat in the British parliament. The right-wing populist Reform Party appears to be taking several seats at the expense of the conservative Tory Party. According to exit polls, this could mean a total of 13 seats.
My plan is to build a national mass movement over the next few years, says Nigel Farage.
Farage was a member of the EU Parliament between 1999-2020 and led the party UKIP, which advocated for British "independence" from the union. He became a key figure in the political development that ultimately led to the British voting to leave the EU.
In domestic elections, Farage's movements have occasionally had relatively strong support, but he himself has previously failed to gather enough support in a single constituency to be elected.
Nigel Farage founded the Brexit Party in 2018, at a time when pressure was mounting on the conservative government to be more uncompromising in its negotiations with the EU on how the exit would be handled. The party later changed its name to the Reform Party and has so far only had one parliamentary seat, when one of the Tory Party's members of parliament switched parties in March this year.