With pints and placards, a flying milkshake, “bad apples” on the ballot paper, and constant reminders his party is merely “a start-up” and has room to grow, it’s been an eventful General Election campaign for Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
On May 22, when the election was called, the veteran politician was honorary party president and had ruled himself out of a Commons attempt, but by June 3 he had been declared leader of Reform and announced he would stand as a candidate in Clacton.
Mr Farage and party chairman Richard Tice had to deal with allegations of racism among some of their candidates and canvassers, but their “contract with the people” rather a traditional manifesto was welcomed by supporters around the country, culminating in a Trump-style rally in Birmingham watched by 5,000.
Nigel Farage’s candidacy in Clapton was dampened within a day when a banana milkshake was thrown over him as he left the Moon and Starfish pub after launching his General Election campaign on June 4 (James Manning/PA)
There was a second incident when an object was thrown at Mr Farage when he was on top of his campaign bus in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, on June 11 ( Danny Lawson/PA)
Reform’s Our Contract With You was launched in a hall in Merthyr Tydfil on June 17 (Ben Birchall/PA)
Mr Farage met customers at a cafe in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, on June 11, where Lee Anderson, the former Tory and Independent MP, was standing as Reform candidate (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
Signing posters after speaking at Princes Theatre in Clacton on June 18 (Ian West/PA)
Mr Farage’s shadow falls across the backdrop to a speech in Blackpool on June 20 (Tim Markland/PA)
… but also tested his luck by playing a 2p machine in a Clacton-on-Sea arcade (Joe Giddens/PA)
The audience for one of the campaign speeches, seen through the window of the Reform UK campaign bus in Maidstone, Kent on June 24 (Jordan Pettitt/PA)
