Electoral history of Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage is a British politician who has stood as a candidate representing the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) since 1994. He has been a Member of the European Parliament representing South East England since the 1999 election, winning re-election three times. Farage has stood for election to the House of Commons seven times, in five general elections and two by-elections, but has not won any of those elections. He was also a leading proponent of the UK leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum, in which the electorate voted to do so.

Contents

• Summary
• Elections to the House of Commons
• Elections to the European Parliament
• Leadership elections
• References

Farage was voted UKIP leader in the September 2006 leadership election, and led them in the 2009 European Parliament election in which his party won the second-highest number of votes and seats after the Conservative Party. He resigned as leader later that year in order to concentrate on the 2010 general election. In late 2010, he was voted leader for a second time after the resignation of Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Farage led UKIP in the 2014 European Parliament election, in which his party won the most votes and seats; this was the first time since the December 1910 general election that Labour or the Conservatives did not get the most seats in a British nationwide election. He resigned as UKIP leader after the 2016 referendum.

The first election to the House of Commons that Farage contested was the 1994 Eastleigh by-election. After standing unsuccessfully for election in the next three general elections, all in a different constituency, he stood in the 2006 Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, in which he finished third with 8.1% of the vote. In the 2010 general election, Farage stood against the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, in the constituency of Buckingham, again finishing third with 17.4% of the vote. Five years later, he stood in the general election in the constituency of South Thanet, finishing second to the Conservative Craig Mackinlay, with 32.4% of the vote.