Key facts
- Nigel Farage is the current Leader of Reform UK and a Member of Parliament for Clacton.
- He has held leadership positions in the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the Brexit Party (now Reform UK).
- Farage was a Member of the European Parliament for South East England from 1999 to 2020.
- He was a prominent figure in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union.
- Farage survived a plane crash on election day in 2010.
Nigel Paul Farage, born April 3, 1964, is a British politician currently serving as the Leader of Reform UK and as the Member of Parliament for Clacton since July 4, 2024. His political career has been marked by a consistent focus on Euroscepticism and a series of leadership roles in various political parties.
Farage was a member of the Conservative Party for 14 years, from 1978 to 1992, before leaving over the Maastricht Treaty. He became a founding member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 1993 and served as its leader multiple times, first acting from October to November 2016, and then in longer terms from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016. During his tenure, UKIP saw significant electoral success, including winning the most seats in the UK in the 2014 European Parliament election, which put pressure on the government to hold the EU membership referendum.
He was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the UK's withdrawal from the EU in January 2020. In 2018, he co-founded the Brexit Party, which was later rebranded as Reform UK in 2021. Farage assumed leadership of Reform UK again on June 3, 2024, and subsequently won the Clacton constituency in the 2024 general election with a majority of 12,784 votes, representing 36.4% of the vote. He previously stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in general elections, including in South Thanet in 2015.
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