London — British politician Nigel Farage, a one-time ally of President Trump who has led a surging far-right, populist movement in the U.K., resigned on Tuesday as a lawmaker to trigger a special election. It’s a high-risk political gamble to renew his mandate from voters as he faces mounting pressure over a financial scandal.
Farage has been accused of violating British parliamentary law for failing to disclose financial gifts — including from a 32-year-old convicted criminal who calls him “Daddy,” according to The Sunday Times newspaper.
The Reform U.K. Party leader said he would stand in the by-election for his vacated seat, which is likely to take place in the early fall.
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“I’ve decided that the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions,” Farage said in a televised address Tuesday, referring to the southeast England constituency he’s represented in parliament for two years.
“This will be a people versus the establishment by-election,” he declared, calling it “a chance to stick two fingers up to the entire establishment to frankly tell them where to go.”
His resignation means that two parliamentary investigations into donations from two wealthy individuals will be suspended.
Farage reiterated his stance on Tuesday that he had “done nothing wrong.”
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BBC New’s chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman called the move an attempt “to appeal to a higher political authority than the parliamentary standards committee,” the body that has been investigating Farage’s financial declarations as a lawmaker.
Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, however, called it a “desperate stunt,” saying Farage had made the decision because he is “up to his neck in sleaze.”
Farage’s party, Reform U.K., which supports the mass deportation of people in the country without legal documentation and the scrapping of national climate goals, has been topping public opinion polls for at least a year.
The party’s ascent — and its success in recent local elections in particular — was part of the reason the ruling Labour Party forced Starmer to tender his own resignation last month.
Starmer is almost certain to be replaced by his Labour colleague Andy Burnham within a few weeks, taking the reigns of both the party and the prime minister’s office.
Farage, if he wins his seat back, could become Burnham’s most serious challenger in the next national elections. If he isn’t reelected to the parliament, however, he cannot become prime minister.
Farage is a divisive figure in U.K. politics. He’s seen as the architect of Britain’s “Brexit” from the European Union, which recent polling shows a majority of voters now believe was a mistake, and he has faced multiple allegations of historic racism.
He has, in the past, appeared keen to show himself as a close ally of President Trump, particularly ahead of the 2016 U.S. election when Mr. Trump won his first term in office. In 2024, he offered to act as a “bridge” between Mr. Trump and Britain’s newly-elected Labour Party.
“I might be useful as an interlocutor, unofficially, behind the scenes, to try and help mend some of those fences,” he said at the time.
In March, however, after Farage visited Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida but didn’t end up meeting with the president, sources close to the British politician told the Financial Times the relationship between the two men had cooled.
Farage had stated before the trip that he would be “dining at Mar-a-Lago.”
A representative said after the trip that he had never planned to meet Mr. Trump in Florida.
