Image source, Getty Images
- Author, Becky Morton
- Role, Political journalist
Britain’s Reform Party leader Nigel Farage has said his party is on course for a “huge” result in the general election.
He highlighted the first two results in the north-east of England, where the Reformists easily beat the Conservatives to come second, winning almost 30% of the vote.
The Reform Party, formed in 2018 as the Brexit Party, is expected to win 13 MPs, according to an exit poll conducted by the BBC, ITV and Sky.
This is more than many polls conducted during the campaign predicted.
This figure is, however, highly uncertain, as the model suggests that there are many places where the party has relatively little chance of winning.
Pollster Sir John Curtice said Reform had benefited from a significant decline in the Conservative vote in seats the party previously held, as well as a bigger gain in areas where people voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.
In an early sign of the Reform Party’s success in winning over former Conservative voters, the first two results of the evening – in Blyth and Ashington and Houghton and Sunderland South – saw the party beat the Conservatives by more than 4,000 votes.
The third result of the evening, in Sunderland Central, followed a similar pattern, with the Reform candidate more than 5,000 votes ahead of his Conservative opponent.
Reacting to the results, Mr Farage posted on social media: “The revolt against the establishment is underway.”
In a video, he said the first two results from the north-east of England were “higher than any possible prediction or projection”.
“It’s almost unbelievable,” he said.
“That means we’re going to win seats, lots and lots of seats, I think, right now, across the country…
“That’s going to be over six million votes. That’s huge, my friends.”
Some of the seats the Reform Party is expected to win could also come from the Labor Party.
However, a Labour source told the BBC: “Our data suggests that Reform will not win many of the seats suggested by the exit polls. They will get fewer than 13 seats.”
Among the Reform Party’s main targets is Clacton in Essex, where Mr Farage is hoping to overturn a Conservative majority of 24,702.
Exit polls suggest there is a more than 99% chance of Mr Farage winning the seat.
Meanwhile, Lee Anderson, who became the first Reform MP when he left the Conservatives in March, is also seeking to retain his Ashfield seat in Nottinghamshire.
Dr David Bull, the party’s joint deputy leader, told BBC Radio 4 that if the exit poll was correct, “it would be a historic breakthrough”.
He suggested that so-called “timid reformers” could be behind the party gaining more seats than expected, with some people reluctant to tell pollsters they planned to vote for the party.
He added: “This is the beginning of a revolt. This is the beginning of a reaction from people who say they don’t like what’s happening in Westminster.”
Mr Farage said he wanted Reform to become the main opposition to Labour by the next election.
At the same time, he succeeded Richard Tice as leader of the Reform Party and played a leading role in the party’s campaign.
The former UKIP and Brexit Party leader has stood unsuccessfully for parliament seven times, most recently in South Thanet, Kent, in the 2015 general election, where he finished second to the Conservative candidate.
Clacton was the first constituency to elect a UKIP MP in 2014, after former Conservative MP Douglas Carswell defected to the party and called a by-election, which he won.
He was unseated by Conservative Giles Watling in 2017, who is fighting to retain his seat.
More than 70% of voters in the Essex constituency supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum.
In 2019, the Reform Party’s previous incarnation, the Brexit Party, withdrew from more than 300 seats previously won by the Conservatives, amid concerns it could split the pro-Brexit vote.
This time, however, the party contested 630 seats in England, Scotland and Wales.
Running a near-full slate of candidates in Britain has posed challenges for the party.
The Reform Party has had to disavow six of them for offensive remarks since the closing of nominations.
The party blamed the surprise announcement of elections in July, and also claimed that a company it had hired to conduct background checks on potential candidates failed to do so before the election was called.
However, it was too late to eliminate any of these candidates, and they still appeared on the party’s ballots.
