Nigel Farage had a drink thrown over him after launching his personal election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea.
The Reform UK leader was leaving a pub after carrying out media interviews when a woman – who only gave her name as Victoria to reporters – poured the drink over his suit jacket. The veteran politician was walking to the Reform UK party bus at the time.
Mr Farage previously said he would not stand in the general election, before Monday’s U-turn announcement.
Prior to the drink incident, Mr Farage said “you will no longer be ignored” as he spoke on the seafront in the Essex town. Clacton, which became the first seat in the UK to elect a UKIP MP in 2014, had a Conservative majority of 24,702 at the last general election in 2019 when Giles Watling was re-elected.
Mr Farage, formerly the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the Brexit Party, told a crowd of people that he would spend “a considerable amount of my time with you fighting for those who don’t have their voice”. I hope that having a national figure representing this constituency will put Clacton on the map,” said Mr Farage, who is also now Reform UK’s party leader.
No longer will you be ignored; I hope I can get investment that will bring jobs. I will stand up and fight for you… send me to Parliament to be a bloody nuisance. Addressing the rally, Mr Farage said the Tories should “pay a big price” for betraying the promises of Brexit. The Tendring district, which includes the parliamentary constituency, voted 69.5% in favour of leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum and Clacton found itself centre stage in national politics in the run-up to that vote. Clacton’s former pro-Brexit Conservative MP Douglas Carswell defected to UKIP prior to the referendum in 2014, resigned his seat and then won it for his new party in a by-election that year – and retained it in the general election in 2015.
Giles Watling reclaimed the seat for the Conservatives in 2017 with a 15,828 majority, and held it with an increased majority in 2019. He is standing again, having won a reselection contest within the local Conservative Association last year. Mr Watling told BBC Essex that Mr Farage “doesn’t give two hoots” about the constituency, which also includes the seaside towns of Frinton and Walton, and villages inland including St Osyth, Tendring and Wix. This is all about Nigel, as ever,” said the former actor, who appeared in 1980s BBC sitcom Bread. I don’t want to see the residents of Clacton-on-Sea taken for granted and sacrificed on the altar of his vanity.
Source: BBC
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