Inside Nigel Farage's rise that shows extent of its impact in UK elections

UK elections 2024: The numbers are in and the verdict is out. Labour Party's Sir Keir Starmer is the new United KingdomPrime Minister after his predecessor and Conservative Party heavyweight Rishi Sunak helmed over the worst electoral performance of Tories in modern times.

But even as the Labour won 412 of 650 seats, it won just over one-third of the national vote. The Conservatives' vote share fell by 20 percentage points as their members in the House of Commons fell to 121 against 251.

But between Starmer's elevation to Downing Street and the electoral decline of the Tories, the underdog story remains concealed within the small seat count (just 4) won by Nigel Farage's Reform UK Party.

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Founded in 2018 at the peak of Britain's Brexit politics, Farage's party had never won a parliamentary seat at any election before July 4. But the breakthrough came for the Reform Party as it won five seats in the House of Commons. The Reform UK leaderhimself was elected for the first time in his eighth election.

But the five seats Farage's party won does not show the significant support it won across the UK, taking away support from both the Tories as well as the Labour.

The party came second in 103 seats. Of these, 93 were finally won by the Labour.

Sunak had earlier miscalculated that Farage was planning to sit out the election. But he dramatically returned to front-line politics as the leader of the right-wing Reform UK party two weeks into the election.

Reform UK went surging in the polls and even briefly pushed the Sunak's Tories into an embarrassing third place with some pollsters.

Reform UK's performance inGeneral Elections

Farage himself defeated the Conservative candidate, Giles Watling, a representative of the coastal constituency in Essex since 2017. The Reform UK leaderwon 21,225 votes to Watling’s 12,820, a majority of 8,405.

"We are coming for Labour… be in no doubt about that," he said, in a short speech at a leisure centre in the seaside town.

(With inputs from agencies)