NIGEL Farage's supporters are out in force in Clacton-on-Sea to ensure he wins his first seat in Parliament. It's a step, he says, towards his Reform UK party shaking up British politics as Marine Le Pen's National Rally is doing in France.
In an interview at his campaign headquarters in the faded seaside town, Farage, who also predicts victory for his friend Donald Trump, is wary about his own election chances after seven failed attempts.
His party has kicked out several candidates for reported racist comments, and two defected to the Conservatives, whose supporters he is targeting in a race led by opposition Labour, but Farage denies Reform is racist.
"A few bad apples" were accepted as candidates after the party "begged for (volunteers) at the last minute", he said, pledging to professionalise a party that is expected to win several seats in its second election.
Farage says he is playing the long game, with his sights set on the next scheduled election in five years' time.
"This is our first significant step towards a much longer-term goal, which is aiming at 2029, but also is aiming at building a mass movement for common sense across the country." Farage, 60, said.
It is a sentiment shared by his supporters in this once proud seaside town, where Londoners used to holiday every year before cheap air travel drew them elsewhere.
Farage has long aimed to smash up the status quo in British politics, and he hopes to use Parliament as a platform just as he used the European Parliament to promote his eurosceptic views when he served in the assembly from 1999 for two decades.
His surprise about-turn on June 3 to enter the British election race as the leader of Reform threw the Conservatives into panic. Until then, most had discounted the party's candidates as little more than a headache.
Such is the state of the Conservatives that some have said Farage could take it over and one day become a Conservative prime minister.
He does not rule it out, but says success for him would be seeing Reform, in five years' time, being the catalyst for "a dramatic realignment of the centre-right of British politics", something he believes the "silent majority" would want.
Farage was instrumental in the campaign to get Britain out of the European Union — meaning he is either loved or loathed in the country — and fear of his earlier party UKIP prompted the Conservatives to commit to the 2016 Brexit referendum.
He now looks to France and the success of Le Pen's far-right RN party in the first round of parliamentary elections and predicts she will become president in 2027.
He says that while on economics, the two parties are far apart — with her as big state, while he prefers reducing the regulatory burden — there are similarities.
"The similarities are culture. I mean, she believes in La France," he said, adding that both she and he stood up for people against political elites.
Farage says unless any new arrivals to Britain are genuine refugees, they should not get any benefits or free healthcare for five years. On social housing, he says many Britons feel disadvantaged in getting on waiting lists.
Farage is focusing on "family, community, country" and aims to make Reform the main voice of opposition to an expected Labour government led by Keir Starmer and then a mass movement.
"Are the Conservatives going to provide any opposition? They seem to hate each other,
they're split down the middle," he said.
"For us, this isn't just about what happens in Westminster. It's about building this broader movement across the country."
The writer is from AFP