Nigel Farage Says he Won’t Stand in UK Election, Says Campaigning in U.S. Globally Important

JACKSON, MS - AUGUST 24: Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, right, greets Unite
Getty Images

Nigel Farage answers long-lingering question of whether he would stand in the UK general election, saying campaigning for Trump in the U.S. has “global significance”.

Brexit leader Nigel Farage won’t stand for election in the United Kingdom’s July 4th general election, he has said. In a statement on his decision — long discussed in British right wing circles as potentially having an outsized impact on the election — Farage reflected reflecting that while the competition to choose the next British government is important, the winner of the U.S. Presidential race has global implications.

“Important though this election is”, Farage wrote the American election has “huge global significance”.

While Farage didn’t name the U.S. polling leader Donald J. Trump in his letter, the two men have always been clear about their friendship and mutual admiration. Mr Farage was the first foreign politician to meet with then-Mr Trump in 2016 after he won that year’s U.S. Presidential election, and has campaigned for him in the past.

Alluding to the troubling global security situation, particularly the sudden surge in conflict during the Biden presidency which critics have blamed on his weak foreign policy, Mr Farage said Britain and the world would be better off with Trump. He said: “A strong America as a close ally is vital for our peace and security. I intend to help with the grassroots campaign in the USA in any way that I can.”

This is not new territory for Farage, who has made clear in the past his view that the world has been less safe under Biden than it would have been under Trump.

Farage also talked up the Reform UK Party that he founded, and which is led and financed by money man Richard Tice. He pointed to the proto-uniparty developing at the centre of British politics, where the Conservative Party has talked tough for 14 years but essentially governed as a left-wing, high-tax, open borders party. In the understatement of the year, Farage said: “the choice between Labour and the Conservatives is uninspiring.”

But nevertheless, he said: “only Reform have the radical agenda that is needed to end decline”.

As things stand according to a BBC polling aggregator, the Conservatives face a total wipe-out at the forthcoming July 4th election, anticipated to get 23 per cent of the vote compared to Labour’s 45 per cent. This would likely not translate directly into seats due to Britain’s first past the post electoral system, and such a result would likely hand Labour a historic super-majority.

The Reform Party has enjoyed continuing growth over the past two years, with some results putting it as high as 16 per cent, but it trends in the early teens. If it hopes to pick up many seats, it has a long way to go in the next six weeks, if the polls are to be believed.

Farage has previously suggested a future left-wing British government could make use of his friendship with President Trump by appointing him Ambassador to Washington. The intention of this unlikely offer to his ideological opponents in Labour appears to be clear, to avoid a re-run of the last Trump Presidency, when his natural goodwill towards the British people was squandered by a British state sour both other Trump’s election and the Brexit process. Easy wins like a U.S.-UK trade deal were not grasped, and with the election of self-professed Anglophobe Biden the chance slipped.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.