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00:00Hello, Rafe Blackburn, National World Politics Editor, and I'm here just by London Bridge.
00:14Behind me here is Glaziers Hall, and that is where Nigel Farage announced that he has
00:19become the new leader of Reform UK and is standing to be a candidate in the Essex constituency
00:27of Clapton.
00:28That is just days after Farage said repeatedly that Richard Tice is the leader of Reform
00:35UK, and he also said he was not going to stand.
00:38In a very punchy speech just now, he said repeatedly that people all across the country
00:45while he's been campaigning for reform had asked him why he wasn't standing.
00:51And he said after a few days he'd had a think and he'd decided to go with his heart and
00:55not his head and stand again.
00:57Now, this will be the eighth time that Farage has stood in a general election, and he's
01:01not won either of the previous seven.
01:05However, in the current electoral landscape, he's probably got the best chance he has ever
01:09had of becoming an MP, with the Conservatives really struggling in the polls, Labour likely
01:15to pinch some of their vote, and the same with Reform.
01:19So this could be a bit of a three-way tie in Clapton, which has historically elected
01:25a UKIP candidate when Douglas Carswell defected from the Tories to UKIP ahead of the referendum
01:37in 2016.
01:38So it's got a history of electing candidates with Nigel Farage's viewpoint.
01:45And in a way, a lot of Farage's speech today reminded me of those Brexit speeches leading
01:50up into the EU referendum.
01:52He made the same argument that he wants to see a political revolution in this country.
01:57He says he wants to stand up to the political class.
01:59He said he wants to look out for the little guy.
02:02These are all the arguments that he successfully made during the EU referendum, managed to
02:08convince millions and millions of people across the country to vote to leave the EU.
02:15Now eight years on, he's making the same argument.
02:19Will it work again?
02:20We'll have to wait and see.
02:22But I think there's little doubt that Farage probably has his best ever chance of becoming
02:26an MP.