NIGEL FARAGE declared he will stand for election after all, the Reform party owner said today in a U-turn that will come as a bitter blow to the Tories.

Mr Farage announced he will contest Clacton in the forthcoming poll and set an aim of winning more votes than the Conservatives as well as improving on the four million that predecessor party Ukip gained in 2015.

He also pledged to challenge Labour for votes in “red wall” constituencies and to drive down the party’s share of the vote, while claiming that “[party leader Sir Keir] Starmer has already won this election.”

In a clear bid to reshape the future of the right, Mr Farage also said that that he was coming back as Reform’s leader for the next five years, replacing Richard Tice.

He told journalists that the aim was for Reform to be the “real opposition” in the next parliament and to become the largest party in an anticipated 2029 election.

Claiming that public pressure had forced him to change his mind, he asserted that the difference between the major parties was narrower than ever before and that people wanted a real alternative.

“There is a rejection of the political class in this country that has not been seen in modern times,” he said.

Reform’s alternative would focus on curbing immigration, cracking down on crime and cutting taxes, asserting that Britain was in “social decline and a form of moral decline.”

His announcement will turbocharge Reform’s hitherto lacklustre election effort and probably doom many Tory MPs to defeat on July 4, laying the basis for a post-election realignment of the right on a populist nationalist basis.