Nigel Farage has said he will not stand in the UK general election, dealing a blow to his Reform party on the first day of its election campaign. Farage announced on Thursday he would not stand for the party he once led, putting an end to weeks of speculation that he would make an eighth attempt to enter parliament. The former Ukip leader made his announcement on X hours before the Reform leader, Richard Tice, launched the party’s general election campaign at a press conference in London. Farage tweeted: “I have thought long and hard as to whether I should stand in the upcoming general election. As honorary president of Reform UK I am fully supportive of Richard Tice’s leadership and urge voters to put their trust in him and Lee Anderson [the party’s sole MP]. I will do my bit to help in the campaign, but it is not the right time for me to go further than that.” He added that he wanted to be free to campaign in the US presidential election later this year. “Important though the general election is, the contest in the United States of America on November 5 has huge global significance.” Farage is the most popular politician in the UK, according to YouGov, and many in Reform had hoped he would turbocharge their campaign and sap further votes from the Conservatives by running for a seat. A poll by Savanta on Thursday showed he is especially popular among Tory voters, with about a third of them saying they were disappointed he was not running. Polling by YouGov for the Progressive Policy Institute, meanwhile, shows Reform has doubled its vote share among working-class Britons from 7 points in 2019 to 14 points now. One Reform activist said: “He’s basically kept people waiting for ages and now it just looks like he’s hedging his bets for the future.” One of the party’s candidates said: “Who knows what his true motivation is? All I know is that if Reform UK are to become a proper long-term force in UK politics, we can’t be dependent on the charisma of one man.” Tice brushed off any suggestion he may be disappointed by Farage’s decision, telling reporters at his campaign launch: “Nigel never said he was going to stand. I’m delighted that he’s able to help us campaign over the next six weeks. That’s the first time he’s been able to do that, [I’m] thrilled about that.” Tice also confirmed Farage would stand aside from presenting his GB News show during the campaign. On Thursday evening Farage, appearing on GB News as a guest during his usual show slot, said he had been preparing to launch a campaign next week to stand as an MP before Sunak announced the general election date. “I wonder whether the Conservative party found out about it. I think the sense of panic that we saw yesterday, the badly prepared speech, might perhaps have prompted it a little bit.” Asked to clarify that he was referring to launching a campaign to stand as an MP, he confirmed, saying: “Yes, absolutely.” Tice said on Thursday that Reform was planning to run in 630 seats across England, Scotland and Wales, and it is now vetting about 130 candidates to make sure it can do so. The party has had problems with its candidates in the past, having dropped several, mainly for espousing extreme views online. Tice said the party had improved its vetting processes but predicted there would still be further issues. “Vetting is like an MOT,” he said. “If you’ve got a car, an MOT is valid the day it works. But you know, if you have a crash the following day, it’s no longer valid for the MOT.”
Reform is ultimately owned by Farage but electoral and corporate filings show it has been mainly bankrolled by Tice, who has contributed about 80% of its declared funding in loans and donations since he took over in 2021. Tice told an audience this month that it would not be easy to run an effective ground campaign, saying Reform was spending “less than £1.5m a year”, compared with the £35m allowed for each party nationally and likely to be spent by the Conservatives and Labour in the year up to the election. Tice said he has so far picked about 450 candidates for the general election. Reform managed to contest only 323 seats in the most recent council elections.