Reform UK will stand a candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election following the resignation of Sir Keir Starmer as an MP, Nigel Farage has said.
He told GB News’ Political Editor Christopher Hope: “It is a big deal, but you know it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes think, seeing former prime ministers sitting on the back benches, it all looks a bit sad…in Starmer’s case, a bit hypocritical because he’s, ‘Oh well, Rishi will be off to California’.
“The manner of Starmer’s leaving, and if you think back to the words that he gave in his last speech here, it was pretty much, ”My work is done’. So he’s going quietly. I wonder who’ll pay for the cost of the by-election. I could throw that in, but might be interesting.”
Asked if Reform would stand a candidate, Farage said: “Oh, of course we will.”
Asked if he wanted the Greens to win, he said: “If I was that cynical, I would say we fight a big campaign because there’ll be patriotic old Labour voters that might come our way and make it easy for the Greens. I’m just not as cynical as you. There you are.
“But if Polanski does stand, it’ll be a hell of a tough challenge for him. But I suppose voters might think, ‘Well, it’s not really going to affect the government majority very much’. So it could be a very interesting contest.”
He said he thought there will be an early General Election: ‘Yep. I predicted on September 24, I said May 27 is when the election comes. I still believe that’s the case.
“I think deteriorating public finances, plus a pretty uncertain outcome in Iran in terms of higher oil prices – it all says to me is that the government cuts and runs rather than wait for the economic situation to get worse. That’s still my guess.”
On the Conservatives planning for an election, Farage said: “She agrees with everything. I mean, she’s copycat Kemi. She agrees almost everything I’ve said in the last three years. It just happens a bit later.”
He dismissed a suggestion that the shadow cabinet reshuffle has seen the Tories move to the right: “What nonsense! People like Mr Hinds back in government. One of the top jobs going to Andrew Griffith, her chancellor. Tom Tugendhat, very nice fellow, but I mean, sort of, ‘We’re not leaving the ECHR, over my dead body’. I think it’s much more of a positioning towards maintaining their strength in the south against the threat from the Liberal Democrats. That’s how I read it.
“But let’s be frank. You know, Andrew Griffith, I like him very much. I like Tom Tugendhat. I don’t dislike these people, but they’re not household names. And one of the problems that you had with the previous shadow cabinet is that most of them weren’t household names.”