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Nigel Farage's return to politics causes wrinkle in British election: Why has he proven so successful?

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Nigel Farage's return to politics causes wrinkle in British election: Why has he proven so successful?

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As Britain votes for its next prime minister on Thursday, one expert believes Nigel Farage and his Reform UK Party will help shape British conservative politics in this and future elections.

“He’s going to make noise,” Matthew Tyrmand, a conservative political activist and adviser to political parties across Europe, told Fox News Digital. “He’s obviously a walking billboard on ideas. People follow him, he’s visible, so he will be able to punch well above the weight of the party’s representation in Parliament.”

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Tyrmand met Farage 10 years ago at CPAC and since then has regularly spoken with the political maverick throughout his various political endeavors, including Brexit and his latest run for political office.

The Reform UK party, founded in 2018, appointed Farage as leader shortly after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a snap election to take place on July 4. In the past six weeks, Reform has led to an erosion of support for the Conservative Party and will most likely expand its representation in Parliament beyond its current one member: Lee Anderson, who defected from the Conservatives earlier this year.

UK CONSERVATIVES IN ‘SERIOUS TROUBLE’ FROM NIGEL FARAGE’S UPSTART PARTY, LEFT-WING ON TRACK FOR HISTORIC WIN

Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party, and local candidate Mark Butcher watch the Denmark-England UEFA Euro match at the Armfield Club on June 20, 2024, in Blackpool, England. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Despite those significant gains, Tyrmand suggested that Farage’s influence will largely remain outside of Parliament, for now. 

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“The contention that he will, you know, be the leader of the opposition, that is an aggressive talking point,” Tyrmand said. “Formally, that will certainly not be the case, but ideologically and in visibility, there will be a case to be made for it.”

“This will set him and Reform up should a Labour government stumble, which I’d be willing to bet that they will do more of the same, whether it’s unfettered immigration or not protecting the working-class people, and wages will still be stagnant,” he added. 

Reform has nearly matched the Conservatives in polling, with around 17% support compared to the Conservatives’ roughly 20%, according to The Telegraph’s polling data from Savanta.

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Tyrmand said that in the British system, because of how votes are spread over constituencies, even if Reform ends up taking 10% to 20% of the vote, it could end up having very few seats overall.

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Nigel Farage enjoys a pint during the then-Brexit Party general election campaign tour on Nov. 24, 2019, in Seaham, England. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

“That alone is going to shine a light on the system and how indirectly, unproportionately representative it is, and people [will] be pissed off about that, as they should be,” he said.

Tyrmand argued that Farage’s recent stint on the popular reality show “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here” helped shed a lot of mysticism around his public persona: Farage finished third in a competition in which contestants subject themselves to a series of trials, according to The Guardian.

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, addresses voters during a general election campaign event in Clacton-on-Sea, England, on July 3, 2024. (Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“People realize he’s not the boogieman that The Sun, The Mirror and The Telegraph and everyone else makes him out to be. The way he campaigns and … watched the football match in the Euro Cup, this is a guy people want to have a beer with,” Tyrmand said.

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“That’s a big part of his appeal and support, but that was really put on steroids after this reality show in December,” Tyrmand added.

The Sun, a newspaper in the U.K. that Pamco Research Group estimated reaches around 8.7 million people per day, endorsed Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer over Farage, but it included him in a final plea to the British public. 

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, left, gets in the ring with boxer Derek Chisora during a visit to Clacton-on-Sea, England, on July 3, 2024. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Normally, only the Labour and Conservative parties would make such bids, and even with a greater presence than Reform, the Liberal-Democrats did not get a chance to make their own pitch.

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Farage, in his final plea, said swapping support from the Conservatives to Labour would only “change middle management” and “Britain’s elites are happy to see Keir Starmer replace Rishi Sunak.”

“I am serious about breaking up their rotten two-party system,” Farage wrote. “After Thursday, Reform UK can be the real opposition in Parliament. We will hold Starmer to account over his plans to open Britain’s borders to even more immigration and betray Brexit by taking the knee to the EU.”

Then-Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and other members of the European Parliament wave flags ahead of a vote on the withdrawal agreement in Brussels on Jan. 29, 2020. (Reuters/Yves Herman)

“And this is just the start,” he added. “Over the next five years, I am serious about building a mass movement for real change. A vote for Reform UK is not a protest vote, it’s not a fantasy vote, it’s not a wasted vote. It’s a vote to change Britain for good.”

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Farage has run seven times for a seat in the British Parliament and failed to win, but he found success in the European Parliament as the European MP for South East England in the United Kingdom Independence Party.

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Prosecutors in Switzerland ordered Jacques Moretti to be detained after investigators questioned him and his wife, Jessica Moretti. Officials are looking into whether negligence played a role in last week’s deadly fire at their bar, Le Constellation.

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.

“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.

Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”

“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.

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Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.

“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”

Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.

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“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.” 

Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro. 

Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.

A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.

That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.

“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe

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