[ad_1]
Nigel Farage has stepped down as leader of Reform UK, the renowned Brexit party, and announced that he will step away from front-line party politics permanently, saying he had achieved what he wanted thanks to the Conservatives’ Brexit deal.
The former Ukip leader, who took that party to a record when it obtained more than 14% of the vote in the 2015 general election, said he still planned to participate in the political debate, but not within a party.
Reform UK, which campaigns on issues including electoral reform and state contraction, as well as opposition to coronavirus lockdowns, will be led by Richard Tice, the property developer who chaired the Brexit party. Farage will assume the position of honorary president.
Farage said in a statement on the Reform UK website that with the May local elections taking place, he had decided to take a step back after “reflecting on my role and my life over the course of the next few years.”
He said that the formation and victory of the Brexit party in the 2019 European elections had been responsible for Boris Johnson replacing Theresa May as prime minister, and that this had achieved what he wanted in Brexit. “The end result has isolated Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK and treated our fisherman in a terrible way, but we are out and there is no going back,” he said.
Outside of party politics, he said he could do as much to change public opinion through the media and social media as he could as a party leader.
Farage, a media expert on UK and US politics, also regularly features videos and tweets on topics including the arrival of asylum seekers from France via the Channel, a process he has referred to as an invasion.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Farage said that his two main focuses would be the influence of China in the UK and “the awakening agenda, literally the indoctrination of our children from primary school to university with a completely different interpretation. of history”.
Farage told the newspaper that he had built “quite a sizeable social media platform” and planned to use it to influence debate on these issues.
A former MEP for Ukip and the Brexit party, Farage also ran for Westminster election seven times, but failed to win a seat.
He led the party three times, once on an interim basis, but finally resigned altogether in 2018 due to what he called his “fixation” on Gerard Batten’s anti-Muslim policies and his ties to far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
Shortly after, he formed the Brexit party, which led the vote in the 2019 European elections. It plummeted to a 2% share of the vote in the general election in late 2019, but by then Johnson’s push for a very tough Brexit it had taken away much of the purpose of the party.
