Yahoo News Nigel Farage becomes MP at 8th time of asking with Clacton victory
Nigel Farage has won Clacton for his Reform Party, becoming an MP at the eighth time of asking.
Mr Farage, who had been given a 95% chance of winning the Clacton seat ahead of the election, claimed 21,225 votes, a majority of nearly 9,000.
He saw off the challenge of Conservative Giles Watling, who had held the seat since 2017, who was beaten into second place with 12,820 votes.
The Reform party are expected to win 13 seats across the evening, according to the exit polls.
Mr Farage’s campaign had been mired in controversy as recently as this week, when a second Reform candidate stood down, claiming the “vast majority” of Reform candidates are “racist, misogynistic and bigoted”.
Georgie David, the Reform candidate for West Ham and Beckton, said she believed the party leadership was “not racist” but it had failed to “tackle this issue in any meaningful way”.
A spokesman for Reform said they were “very disappointed” with Ms David’s course of action.
They said: “We strongly disagree with her sweeping comments about the ‘vast majority’ of our 600-plus candidates, the vast majority of whom she can never even have met.
“And we find it sad and strange that she chose not to bring up any of her concerns with the party leadership before publicly trashing so many of her blameless colleagues who are giving their all to get Reform UK elected.
“Ms David was a last-minute addition to our candidate list and we apologise to the voters of West Ham and Beckton for any inconvenience.”
Nigel Farage’s party was embroiled by racism allegations when campaigners for Reform in Clacton were recorded by an undercover journalist from Channel 4 making racist comments, including about the Prime Minister, who is of Indian descent.
Mr Farage has previously said “bad apples” will be removed from the party, which he said had been “let down” by a vetting company hired to assess candidates.
