Reform UK leader and British Member of Parliament (MP) Nigel Farage announced that he was resigning from Parliament.
“Today I will resign as a Member of Parliament for Clacton-on-Sea, thereby forcing a by-election, which will happen, I hope in short order,” he said, adding, “This will be a people vs. the establishment by-election. It’s a chance to stick two fingers up to the entire establishment, to frankly tell them where to go, and that is why I will be putting my name forward to stand in this by-election.”
His resignation follows a series of scandals surrounding gifts from wealthy donors, although he has denied wrongdoing. “Let me be absolutely clear. I have done nothing wrong,” Farage said. “I have not broken the law in any way at all. I have not misused public money.”
“Do we want leaders who know how to make money?” he asked. “Do we want leaders that have run businesses, employed people, and understand how the world works? Well, I’m going to argue today that we absolutely need successful people from all walks of life, but particularly from business and industry, we need them in Parliament, we need them in government if we even have half a chance, and turning around the dire economic state this country now finds itself in.”
Last year, Farage said that Britain’s Labour government was “deep in crisis.”
“Not only have they fallen into deep unpopularity within just a year of winning the general election, but it’s become clear to all of us that it is a cabinet of wholly unqualified people to run our country: they are not fit to govern,” he said, going on to predict that Labour, like the Conservatives before them, would collapse.
