POLLING expert John Curtice has given his verdict after Nigel Farage’s resignation as an MP – which will trigger a by-election in his Clacton constituency.
It comes after the Reform UK leader – in a hastily announced press conference on Tuesday – announced he will quit as the MP for Clacton after coming under intense pressure over unregistered donations of cash and support.
The move will lead to a by-election in the constituency in the coming months. In a video statement, Farage said: “I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all.”
He accused the media of harassment and vowed to fight a “people versus the establishment” by-election.
But it has been branded a "cynical stunt” by rival party leaders and trade union officials, with some suggesting Farage is simply jumping before he was pushed amid multiple parliamentary standards investigations into undeclared funding.
Reacting to the announcement and the future by-election in Clacton, Curtice – a professor at Strathclyde University – said on BBC News that it isn’t a move without risks.
“It's clearly an attempt by Nigel Farage to grab the political agenda, and perhaps to deal with some of the critics who are saying he's not been seen too much, that Reform UK are going backwards,” the polling guru said.
“He is, in a sense now, laying down the gauntlet and challenging the other parties to be able to demonstrate to the electorate that he should be re-elected. In truth, I think he's making a pretty safe one-way bet. It is a constituency where he had an 18 point lead back in July 2024, and although Reform UK are not as popular as they once were, they're still running at around 26% in the opinion polls, well above the 15% that they got in July 2024.”
Curtice then added: “That said, it's not a move without risk. The first is that as a tactic it might to some degree fizzle out if his political opponents are not willing to play ball. The last time an MP resigned in order to fight his own constituency, to my memory, is David Davis back in 2008.
“He resigned because of concerns about the way in which Parliament was extending the amount of time that people could be held in custody without being charged with respect to terrorism offenses. But neither the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats stood against him, so it rather took the fizzle out.”
Some parties – including far-right Restore Britain – have already announced they won’t stand in the Clacton by-election in protest. The other mainstream parties haven’t yet announced whether they will stand or not.
