General election latest: Farage announces election U-turn - and reveals which seat he will stand in (2024)

Nigel Farage's bid to become MP for Clacton, Essex, "could not have been much worse for the Conservatives" and may have a significant impact beyond the election, says political correspondentRob Powell.

His profile "is only bad for the Tories, and frankly, only good for Labour".

But Mr Farage appeared to have his eyes not only on the next four weeks when announcing his candidacy, but on the next five years.

Should Labour win, and the Tories endure a "crushing defeat", but Farage himself ends up in parliament, there could be a "loud and controversial, but also influential, voice on the right of politics".

That could then end up shaping what the Tory party ends up looking like post-election, potentially shifting further to the right.

Farage's influence set to grow

As for the next four weeks, Mr Farage's announcement will increase his influence during the election campaign.

"Not only is he announcing that he will run for a Westminster seat, he is announcing that he will take over as Reform leader as well, which clearly gives him a lot more media exposure," says Rob.

"It means he will be involved in debates and in people's newspapers and on people's TV screens.

"I think this is a really significant development."

With YouGov predicting a rout of the Conservative Party, it is worth digging into which famous faces could be finished.

They could follow in the footsteps of Michael Portillo, who was famously unseated in 1997.

He was a Tory cabinet minister, beaten by Labour's candidate in Enfield as Tony Blair swept to power.

Below is who is at risk this time:

• Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor;
• Grant Shapps, the defence secretary;
• Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader;
• Victoria Prentis, the attorney general;
• Alex Chalk, the justice secretary;
• David TC Davies, the Welsh secretary;
• Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister;
• Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister;
• Bim Afolami, a Treasury minister;
• Lee Rowley, a housing minister.

Our deputy political editorSam Coatestakes us through the potential results:

In YouGov's own words - this major poll (see previous post) on the outcome of the election is not a prediction, but an estimate.

So what makes it different to the plethora we've had already?

Well, this one is done with the MRP method.

MRP stands for the somewhat word salad-y "Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification".

In simple terms, this is how it works:

• YouGov asks lots of people, across the country, how they intend to vote. It also asks them questions about who they are so they can paint a picture of the voter;
• The pollsters use these pictures to know which characteristics match with someone voting a certain way - this is the regression bit;
• YouGov then combines this with a second piece of information it has - a breakdown of all the constituencies and the kinds of people who live in each one;
• These portraits of how people vote - based on where they live, gender, age and many other factors - are matched with the descriptions of all the different constituencies to produce an estimate for how each seat intends to vote. This is the stratification;
  
• From there, YouGov provides the estimate of how the general election could turn out.
  

A huge number of people are asked for their opinions to build up the pictures used in MRP.

Sometimes it can be close to 20,000 people being asked.

By Sam Coates, deputy political editor

Keir Starmer could be heading to Downing Street with a majority of 194 seats - the biggest for 100 years - according to the first polling projection by YouGov since the election was called.

The poll has Labour on 422 seats, up 221 compared to the 2019 results based on new constituency boundaries.

It also projects a Tory wipeout in large parts of the country, a Lib Dem surge, and the Scottish National Party losing over half its seats in Scotland, if the election was being held right now.

Today marks the first of three polling projections by YouGov, as part of a joint campaign with Sky News.

The projection shows an historic Labour landslide bigger than Tony Blair achieved in 1997, with the party getting the highest number of seats of any party at an election in history since Stanley Baldwin won a majority of 208 in 1924.

It would be the highest number of Labour seats on record, and a much bigger majority than anything else since the Second World War.

A 194 majority for Starmer would dwarf Blair's 1997 landslide majority of 179 and Margaret Thatcher who got 144 in 1983.

Read the full story below:

Our political correspondentGurpreet Narwan asks Nigel Farage if he thinks he is bigger than the Reform party.

She also asks whether his decision to stand reflects he is unhappy with Reform's campaign start.

He rolls his eyes before saying the Conservatives' attempts to "crush the Reform vote" with policies like national service hasn't worked.

"Given the onslaught, we think we're in a pretty good shape," he says.

He says he is "pretty bullish about this".

Mr Farage does not answer Gurpreet's first question.

Another journalist asks whether if he does not hit his target - more than 4.5 million votes - he will resign.

"If I don't get that result, I'll go down the pub and have a think about it, alright, and be very disappointed."

Channel 4 asks Mr Farage if he has lied by saying he was not standing and now doing so.

The new Reform leader says he did not mislead anyone, and that he had said previously he was planning to stand, but only ruled himself out when Rishi Sunak called a surprisingly early election.

He says: "I haven't been dishonest with anybody.

"I've changed my mind.

"I've not been dishonest with anybody, least of all myself."

Asked whether he sought Donald Trump's advice, Nigel Farage says "the Donald has other things to be dealing with".

"He's been rather busy - including joining TikTok," he adds.

He says Donald Trump's conviction in New York last week made no difference to his own decision to stand.

"I've now no doubt he'll win the presidential election - but America becomes ever more divided and the whole thing becomes ever more worrying."

Mr Farage is also asked to address the fact Reform is already fielding a candidate in Clacton.

"He knew for many months that this was a possibility. For many, many months, this was a possibility. Not a probability, but a possibility," he says.

Taking a question from journalists, Nigel Farage is asked whether he has made Keir Starmer the "happiest man in British politics" by announcing his candidacy.

Mr Farage denies Reform will only take votes from the Conservatives.

He says the same question was asked of UKIP in 2015, and the party took more votes from Labour.

"You were all wrong. All of you were wrong," he says, gesturing to the journalists in the room.

"No. Those people currently saying they'll vote Reform won't vote Conservative. They've gone. The Red Wall feels completely betrayed."

He says Reform will draw "fairly evenly" from Labour and the Conservatives.

The first question to Nigel Farage comes from GB News.

They ask what Mr Farage's goal is.

In response, the new party leader says only one of his previous Westminster attempts was genuine.

The rest were as a pressure group.

He says he did not mind losing, but accuses the opposition of cheating.

Mr Farage says he cannot "turn his back" on the people who want him to stand.

"I can't turn my back on those millions of people who followed me, believed in me despite the horrendous things that were being said about me," he says.