The seat where Nigel Farage could beat Tories if he stood as Reform candidate

Survey results will fuel calls among supporters of former Ukip and Brexit Party leader to make a political comeback at the next election

Nigel Farage could beat a Conservative candidate by 10 points if he stood to become a Reform UK MP, a poll suggests.
A survey carried out by Survation in the Essex constituency of Clacton found that the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader would pick up 37 per cent of the vote compared to 27 per cent for the Conservative incumbent if he stood as a Reform candidate.
The figures exclude the 30 per cent of people who said they were undecided or refused to state their preference. When those responses were taken into account, Mr Farage was still seven points ahead of Giles Watling, the current Conservative MP,  who was left with 19 per cent, according to Survation’s calculations.
The survey was commissioned by Arron Banks, a longtime ally of Mr Farage, and passed to The Telegraph. It will fuel calls among Mr Farage’s supporters for him to make a political comeback at the next election.
The 59-year-old – who recently appeared on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! – is said to be considering his options but is reluctant to stand for Parliament again having previously unsuccessfully stood seven times, in five general elections and two by-elections.
Mr Banks, who was a major donor to Mr Farage’s Leave EU campaign, is among those urging the former MEP to return to the political front line to lead Reform into the election, which Rishi Sunak has said will be held in the second half of this year.
Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Banks said: “Nigel Farage has often complained that the ‘First Past The Post’ system makes it impossible to compete with the two main parties and, despite stunning success with both Ukip and the Brexit Party that changed the course of history, he has failed to break into the Westminster cartel.
“The remarkable poll in today’s Telegraph shows that the seat of Clacton might be about to change that dynamic.”
The Survation poll of 509 adults in Clacton, carried out between Jan 9 and 12, found that, based on the existing set of candidates, 38 per cent of people would vote for Mr Watling, the incumbent Conservative MP, 18 per cent would support Anthony Mack, the current Reform candidate, and 30 per cent would back Labour, whose candidate is yet to be announced.
When respondents were asked how they would vote in the scenario that Mr Farage was the Reform candidate, Mr Watling’s vote dropped to 27 per cent, with 37 per cent backing Mr Farage and 23 per cent supporting the Labour candidate. In each case the figures exclude about 30 per cent of voters who were undecided or refused to state their voting intentions.
Clacton became one of the most prominent constituencies during the lead-up to the 2016 Brexit vote after Douglas Carswell, the area’s former MP, defected from the Conservatives to Ukip in 2014 before calling a by-election. He has said his win in Clacton as a Ukip candidate helped to bounce David Cameron into holding the EU referendum two years later.
Mr Watling, 70, is a former actor who said in 2018 of Brexit that “I speak as a remainer, who wouldn’t have done this in the first place, but if we’re going to go through all this pain and uncertainty, and at the end of it we don’t have sovereignty and the European court of justice has dominion over the backstop, then what’s been the point?” He has represented Clacton since 2017, winning a majority of 24,702 at the 2019 election.
Reform is currently led by Richard Tice, who said in an interview with The Telegraph that he believes it is unlikely Mr Farage will stand for a seat as, “if he tries to campaign [nationally] and also stand somewhere the danger is that you don’t do either quite as well”.
By Arron Banks
Britain is broken and the vast majority of people in this country are sick and tired of politics and the army of politicians running the country.
The latest scandal, in which honest, hard-working sub-postmasters were jailed and others thrown under the bus, typifies two-tier Britain.
Ed Davey, the former minister in charge of overseeing the Post Office, left his job, collected a knighthood and now runs a major political party.
Trust in our politicians and institutions has fallen to an all-time low. The political, Civil Service and corporate elite are milking the taxpayer.
Capitalism has been replaced with corporatism, cronyism and the hollowing out of the lives of ordinary working people. The average person, even on a decent salary, might as well be indentured labour working for the state: tax rates have soared to a 70-year high and the impact of inflation means that making ends meet is almost impossible but for a gilded few.
The Conservative party obsession with open-door immigration, together with the strain on infrastructure, schools, hospitals, GP surgeries, and almost every other service is intolerable and unaffordable.
What is needed is fundamental reform of the entire political and civil service system.
The recent rise of the Reform party in the polls has revealed public appetite for that change. It is remarkable that a party with limited brand awareness has hit 10 per cent in the polls and threatens to cause an extinction-level event for the Conservative party.
Nigel Farage has often complained that the “First Past The Post” system makes it impossible to compete with the two main parties and, despite stunning success with both Ukip and the Brexit Party that changed the course of history, he has failed to break into the Westminster cartel.
The remarkable poll in The Telegraph shows that the seat of Clacton might be about to change that dynamic.
Farage enjoys a ten point lead over Giles Watling, a prominent Remain-voting Conservative MP, in one of the most strongly Brexit-voting seats in the country.
By some estimates the national support for Reform would increase to 20 per cent if Farage returned as leader, winning votes from both parties.
Sir Kier Starmer, beware: working class Labour voters love Farage. He could smash the Red Wall. In fact, the poll shows that the Reform vote nearly doubles with Farage as the candidate in Clacton.
The Labour party has a 24 per cent lead in national polls but their support is a mile wide and an inch thick. There is no enthusiasm for Sir Keir or for Labour. The public realises it will be business as usual, just with a different coloured sign over the shop. But they won’t vote Conservative.
Richard Tice has done a great job of building the national infrastructure required for Reform, bringing candidates together and creating the vehicle that could take UK politics by storm.
It is a significant achievement to reach double digits in the polls and reflects the gathering storm for UK Politics PLC.
I believe that the Reform party should turn its fire on the business of politics and reform of the system. The message should be that we need to “Drain the Westminster swamp”. Reform candidates should commit to that message.
It is neither Left nor Right wing but fundamental change that everyone can get onboard with, such as exiting the European Convention on Human Rights, tackling both legal and illegal immigration, reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 400, introducing a proportional representation voting system, abolishing the House of Lords and introducing a ten-year ban on any civil servant working in the private sector after leaving government.
With the Reform party already scoring 10 per cent in national polls and other research showing they could surge to 20 per cent with Farage as leader, a simple uncompromising message of “Reform” could be brilliantly delivered by him and ignite the dynamite under a failed two-party system.
Arron Banks is a businessman and co-founder of Leave.EU