Reform's Nigel Farage: 'Why I should be next Clacton MP'

I MET with Nigel Farage, Reform UK leader and General Election candidate for Clacton, in Thorpe-le-Soken's Rose and Crown Pub.

My first question to Mr Farage, 60, was why he is qualified to be MP for Clacton as a non-local candidate.

Mr Farage said he was “more than qualified to be an MP” after being an MEP for more than 20 years, having a “huge” amount of experience in what is just “a different parliament”.

He said: “Clacton, politically, is a very special place.

“The arrangement they came to with Douglas Carswell in 2014 was historic. The principal of a Member of Parliament crosses the floor, joins a different party and has the honour to put himself up for a by-election, which he won.”

Mr Farage continued: “I don't think Brexit would have happened without the fact it was the beginning of that political revolution, or not the beginning, but a very important part of that revolution.”

Leader - As well as running to be MP for Clacton, Nigel Farage is the leader of the new political party Reform UK (Image: PA)

Jaywick Sands in the Clacton Constituency is the most deprived neighbourhood in the country. If elected MP, could Mr Farage change that statistic?

He said: “I go there, I meet some of the nicest, friendliest people you meet anywhere. I’ve had an amazing reception.”

Mr Farage also said he had a “strong sense of the area”, being in Clacton for General and European Elections.

Mr Farage said when he was there in 2014 he had a great reception, adding: “They need well-paid jobs. They also need to be incentivised, in many cases, to get off benefits and get back to work.

"They need a bit of ambition... I can’t wave a magic wand. If I am able, using a national profile to help the most, I will.”

Asked about the food banks in Clacton and Jaywick Mr Farage said: “If you are depressed, if you are down, you can’t see a way forward.

“Then you finish up in the benefits-foodbank way of living and you can't see a way out. That isn't the fault of any individual, it’s the circumstances in which they live.”

Asked about the mental health side of unemployment, Mr Farage said that is why one of his “biggest pledges” is to do with raising the tax-free threshold to £20k, adding: “You’ve got a job, you work for over 16 hours a week.

“You work it off – fabulous.”

RAAC - Nigel Farage was asked about the collapse-prone concrete, RAAC, which was found in Tendring Technology College which is in Frinton-on-Sea (Image: Submitted)

Essex is the worst county for RAAC, a collapse-prone concrete used in the building of the schools. More than 70 schools were affected and 46 are still on the list, including three in Clacton.

I ask Mr Farage whether there would be any money for RAAC schools, particularly considering his pledge to have a 20 per cent tax relief for independent schools.

He said schools would have to be rebuilt which would “take time” and in the “intervening time” schools will have “to struggle on with more limited facilities”.

He said: “Some say you can’t put students in Porta Cabins, but actually with teaching you can put students anywhere.”

“Indeed, during lockdown, students were at home. Clearly the RAAC thing is a massive disaster, a massively expensive, huge problem. We do not have the money right now to rebuild.

“What matters more than RAAC, than rotten buildings, is what youngsters are being taught.”

Another Reform UK pledge was to increase spending for the NHS by £17billion a year – the largest of any party election pledge – while also looking at an insurance-based model similar to other countries, such as France.

Asked whether the £17billion was a "pie in the sky" number like the £350million figure on the side of the Vote Leave bus during the Brexit referendum, Mr Farage said: “The important thing about the NHS, what we’re saying, is that needs a radical rethink.

“The more money we pump in, the less we get out the other end.”

Asked again if there was extra money for the NHS after we left the European Union, Mr Farage said: “Do you know what? All the money in our country gets into a central pot and comes out of it.

"The concept that this bit of money pays for that, that is cobblers. I never supported the £350million, I never thought it was right.”

Asked if an insurance model for the NHS would suit people in Clacton on a lower income, Mr Farage said that like the “beauty of the French system”, those who can afford to pay would and those who cannot afford to would not.

Pledge - Nigel Farage's Reform UK party promises an additional £17 billion a year to the NHS (Image: PA)

I also ask Mr Farage for clarification about his pledge to keep “essential immigration” for the NHS, while "freezing" other immigration, and whether that applies to social care.

He said: “We have to get British people back to work.

“We’ve got to the end dependency on cheap migrant labour. We may not do it overnight, but we need to end it.

"We have to say to people on benefits, we’ve got to incentivise you to get back into work."

When asked about the future of this, Mr Farage said: “For the moment, we will have to continue with health, getting people in.

“But I hope to end that in a few years, by encouraging more people to get trained and skilled in those areas."

Event - Nigel Farage attended a public meeting at the Princess Theatre following his half-hour interview with the Clacton and Frinton Gazette (Image: PA)

On the environment, Reform UK has pledged being to ‘scrap net-zero’. I ask if that helps the people of Tendring when the green hub Freeport East is in neighbouring Harwich.

Mr Farage conceded that Freeport East and other green schemes do “provide jobs” but said he is not a fan of wind energy “unless someone can prove that you can make hydrogen” from it.  

He also claimed Reform is the most “pro-nuclear party”, which is “reliable” and “zero-carbon”.

Isolated - Nigel Farage said Witham MP Priti Patel has been isolated for a long time in the Conservative Party (Image: PA, James Manning)

Asked whether it would be an advantage to have Priti Patel, the former Conservative Home Sectary who is running for Witham, as a nearby MP, Mr Farage said they were close friends.

He added: “She’s been isolated in her own party for a long time, but are there issues of common cause we can work together as Essex MPs… Yes.”

Ukraine - Nigel Farage said the war with Ukraine and Russia was "horrific" and "like the Western front in 1917", but unlike Boris Johnson, he does not think we are going to "defeat Russia" instead saying a stalemate will occur leading to "at some point" negotiations (Image: Number 10)

To conclude, Farage said: “There’s a big change happening, and it’s happening across all of Europe as well.”

“There is a big change coming and we seem to be getting some of that.”