Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has congratulated the party’s fifth MP by animatedly telling him ‘Go on my son!’, as the politician slammed the current electoral system as ‘not fit for purpose’.
The party won a fifth seat in the General Election by just a whisker of a lead this afternoon after a recount in an Essex constituency saw their candidate take a majority of 98 votes.
James McMurdock won the Basildon South and East Thurrock seat from Labour candidate Jack Ferguson, in the final election result to be declared in England.
He was the fifth Reform winner after party leader Nigel Farage won in Clacton, Lee Anderson defended Ashfield, party chairman Richard Tice secured Boston and Skegness and former Southampton FC chairman Rupert Lowe won Great Yarmouth.
Mr McMurdock took 12,178 votes, giving him a 30.8 per cent share – while Mr Ferguson got 12,080 and 30.5 per cent.
The seat was previously held by the Tories, but their candidate Stephen Metcalfe got 10,159 votes, a share of 25.7 per cent.
Other parties who got less than 5 per cent were independent candidates Neil Speight and Steven Burnett, the Green Party’s Elizabeth Grant, Liberal Democrat candidate Dave Thomas and Simon Breedon of the Social Democratic Party.
Mr Farage was swift to congratulate his newest MP via a video message on X.
Wrapped in the euphoria of the win, Mr Farage explained how Mr McMurdock was ‘neck-a-neck’ with his Labour rival.
He said: ‘Our candidate James McMurdock was a paper candidate, drafted in at the last minute – a former City boy. He was absolutely neck-a-neck with Labour.
‘So I rang him up and said, “Look, let me ring your agent so I can find out what’s happening”, because they were on their third recount.
‘He said, “I haven’t got an agent, I am my own agent.”
‘So I asked who was in the hall watching the vote count with you and he said, “with my mum and dad!”
‘He’s an MP! Go on my son!’
It comes after Mr Farage gave a ‘100 per cent promise’ to rid Reform of ‘bad apples’, as multiple protesters disrupted an event designed to celebrate the party’s gains.
Reform MPs Richard Tice, Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe in London today
The Reform leader walked on stage to lights and dance music, then faced a barrage of heckles from protesters in the audience as he tried to start a speech in central London to mark what the party described as a ‘political earthquake’.
He suggested one of the protesters had had a ‘bigger lunch than I have’, and that another was at risk of having a stroke before questioning if they were actors, a nod to a Reform canvasser filmed using a racial slur to describe now former prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Mr Farage accused a man who interrupted his speech of being ‘steaming’ and shouted ‘boring!’ nine times as a second heckler started speaking.
He told his party’s supporters: ‘This is good preparation for the House of Commons I suppose, isn’t it? It’s going to be very lively in there.’
When Mr Farage asked: ‘Any more for any more?’ there was a long pause before a man shouted: ‘Actually yes.’
Nigel Farage is heckled during at a Reform UK press conference in London this afternoon
A heckler interrupts Reform party leader Nigel Farage as he tries to speak in London today
A heckler interrupts Reform party leader Nigel Farage as he tries to speak in London today
A heckler interrupts Reform party leader Nigel Farage as he tries to speak in London today
Nigel Farage reacts as a protester interrupts his press conference in London this afternoon
A heckler is escorted out as Reform party leader Nigel Farage tries to speak in London today
A heckler is escorted out as Reform party leader Nigel Farage tries to speak in London today
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage reacts as a protester interrupts his speech in London today
A heckler is escorted out as Reform party leader Nigel Farage tries to speak in London today
A heckler is escorted out as Reform party leader Nigel Farage tries to speak in London today
Mr Farage added: ‘We haven’t organised this very well, have we?’
All heckling members of the audience were escorted out of the Westminster venue.
The chaotic scenes took place at an event where Mr Farage, the new MP for Clacton, was joined by his fellow parliamentarians Mr Anderson, Mr Tice and Mr Lowe.
While Reform UK was formed in 2018, Mr Farage has sought to become an MP multiple times without success.
He was a member of the European Parliament for 20 years, during which time he campaigned fiercely for the UK to leave the EU.
Reform had an early boost in several constituencies where they took second place, pushing the Tories into third.
Reform MPs Richard Tice, Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe in London today
A heckler is escorted out as Reform party leader Nigel Farage tries to speak in London today
A heckler interrupts Reform party leader Nigel Farage as he tries to speak in London today
A heckler is escorted out as Reform party leader Nigel Farage tries to speak in London today
A heckler is escorted out as Reform party leader Nigel Farage tries to speak in London today
A heckler interrupts Reform party leader Nigel Farage as he tries to speak in London today
Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon is interrupted by hecklers
Nigel Farage is heckled during at a Reform UK press conference in London this afternoon
A heckler interrupts Reform party leader Nigel Farage as he tries to speak in London today
A heckler is led away during Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon
Mr Farage said: ‘We bite our nails’, as they await a recount in Basildon South & East Thurrock in the hope they would secure a fifth seat.
He said proportional representation in the voting system would have meant Reform ‘looking at nearly 100 seats’, adding the ‘outdated’ first-past-the-post electoral system is ‘not fit for purpose’.
After claiming the General Election showed there was ‘absolutely no enthusiasm’ for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour, Mr Farage reiterated his party’s ambitions to act as the opposition to the new Government.
Mr Farage said: ‘We are going to be the opposition around the country.’
He added: ‘Above all what we’re going to do from today is we’re going to professionalise the party, we’re going to democratise the party, and those few bad apples that have crept in will be gone, will be long gone, and we will never have any of their type back in our organisation.
‘You have a 100 per cent promise on that.’
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Hecklers interrupt Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon
Nigel Farage is heckled during at a Reform UK press conference in London this afternoon
Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon is interrupted by hecklers
Hecklers interrupt Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon
A heckler is led away during Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon
Nigel Farage puts his head in his hand in Westminster today as the speech is interrupted
A heckler is led away during Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon
Hecklers interrupt Nigel Farage’s press conference in Westminster this afternoon
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage with Richard Tice at the press conference in London today
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage arrives at the press conference in London today
During the press conference he also said that vetting candidates is ‘easy’ and that most racism in British politics is in the Labour Party.
Asked how he would vet Reform candidates properly going forward, including for racism, he said: ‘Very easy. You go back through their social media records, you obviously do police checks and things like that, no, it’s not difficult to do it and the message has to be clear and simple.
‘We don’t want anyone like that involved with us. Indeed I mean the racism problem in the Labour Party was enormous, but to Keir Starmer’s credit actually he did quite a lot by getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn, who ironically has been re-elected.
‘There’s an awful lot we can do. There is plenty of racism in British politics, it’s mostly in the Labour Party.’
Mr Farage said he was not going into Westminster to ‘behave terribly’ but would challenge conventions after being elected as an MP for the first time.
Leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage and Chairman of Reform UK, Richard Tice, in London today
Reform MPs Richard Tice, Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe in London today
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage pauses as he speaks to the media in London today
Reform MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, speaks to the media during a press conference today
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage with Richard Tice at the press conference in London today
Reform MPs Richard Tice, Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe in London today
Asked how he would democratise Reform UK and shake up Westminster from the inside as a ‘disruptor’, he said he did not know whether his party would have the ‘power to change the systems’ and that being a ‘disruptor’ can be considered negative but could be ‘a very positive context because it sparks a very, very different debate’.
‘But we’re not going in to behave terribly or anything like that, but certainly going in to challenge conventions and certainly going in believing that the broad church that is the Conservative Party that currently has no religion, simply won’t be able to provide any sort of challenge at all.
‘And we may be fewer in number but we’re absolutely united in what we believe in and what we stand for.’
He also said Reform’s constitution would ‘get put fully to the conference’.
Mr Anderson claimed he would be looking at Sir Keir Starmer’s Government in the Commons and thinking ‘what has our country come to’.
The Reform MP said the UK’s Prime Minister and his ‘motley crew absolutely scares me to death, I’m going to be sat on the green benches next week looking at them and thinking what has our country come to’.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage reacts as a protester interrupts his speech in London today
Reform MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, speaks to the media during a press conference today
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage pauses as he speaks to the media in London today
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media in London this afternoon
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media in London this afternoon
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media in London this afternoon
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media in London this afternoon
Mr Farage said Reform’s focus will be on going ‘after Labour votes’.
He said: ‘Old Labour was very, very patriotic. It believed in the country. It believed in its people. New Labour far less so.
‘And the journey that Lee Anderson has been on is a journey that at least a couple of million people have been on, and it’ll be many, many more by the time we’re finished, because no doubt, our priority now is to go after Labour votes. That is what we’re going to be doing.
Mr Farage has said he is ‘launching criminal legal action’ against Colin Bloom of Vetting.Com as he vowed to ‘professionalise’ Reform.
Facing a question about the racism row engulfing the party, its leader again blamed the firm it contracted to vet candidates.
Nigel Farage celebrates with his girlfriend Laure Ferrari after he won in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex
Nigel Farage celebrates after winning his first seat in parliament in Clacton-on-Sea early today
This was the eighth attempt by Mr Farage to win a Westminster seat after years of trying
Reform UK’s Richard Tice is elected in Boston and Skegness overnight
Reform MP Lee Anderson is announced as winner at the general election count in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, overnight
He also said: ‘I made it clear that Ukip would be a non-racist, non-sectarian party, and in the end it was.
‘I will jolly well make sure, starting today, that we do not want people with desperately unpleasant views. We will not tolerate people with these views. They will be gone.
‘And we’ll have the funding after this, we’ll have the support coming in to be able to absolutely professionalise the party. This will never happen again.’
He laughed and said ‘stitch-up merchants’ as he was asked a question by Channel 4 News.
The Reform leader has launched a series of attacks against the broadcaster after it reported that a canvasser for his party had used racist language.
Channel 4 then asked him about the leadership and direction of the party, to which he responded that he would stay at the helm but indicated that by the 2029 election ‘somebody younger and better-looking’ will have come along.
As the event ended, the audience of about 100 people gave a round of applause, Mr Farage, Mr Tice, Mr Anderson and Mr Lowe then posed for photos before leaving.
Afterwards, Mr Anderson called hecklers who interrupted the event ‘professional nuisances’.
He added: ‘I think they need to get a job.’
