Farage: I’ll decide this week whether to stand for leadership

Former head of Ukip says he has been ‘taken a bit by surprise’ by Paul Nuttall’s decision to step down

NIGEL FARAGE will decide within the next seven days whether he is going to stand to be leader of Ukip for a fourth time following the collapse in his party’s support at the polls.

Mr Farage said he was going “to have a think about it” after his successor Paul Nuttall resigned as leader.

The Eurosceptic party’s future was left in doubt after Ukip failed to win a single seat and its vote share collapsed to less than two per cent from 12.6 per cent in 2015.

The party racked up tens of thousands of pounds in lost deposits as its candidates failed to win enough votes in each seat.

Mr Farage said he had a “busy media weekend” planned but added there was “no great rush” and he would “think about it over the weekend”. He told the The Daily Telegraph: “There is a possibility of a huge flank being reopened in British politics.”

Mr Farage said he had been “taken a bit by surprise” by Mr Nuttall’s decision to quit, saying: “I thought he performed pretty well in difficult circumstances.”

On Mr Farage’s future, Mr Nuttall said: “If Nigel Farage wants to come back, I would be more than happy to do a job swap. I’ll take his slot on LBC and he can come back as leader of Ukip.”

Ukip had been hoping to make gains in Thursday’s poll, with Mr Nuttall running a campaign pledging to “ensure there is no backsliding on Brexit”.

Mr Nuttall said he had ensured that the party was “still on the pitch”.

He insisted Ukip was “more relevant than ever” and would be the “guard dogs of Brexit” in the coming months.

Mr Nuttall told a news conference: “It is clear that Ukip requires a new focus, new ideas and a new energy – and it is there amongst out ranks.

“I think, regardless of the score last night, I have laid the foundations for the future in this General Election campaign but it will be for someone else to build on those.”

Asked what next, Mr Nuttall replied: “What now for me? Holiday. Or if that bar is open, a pint...”

It was his sixth attempt to get into Parliament, having finished second behind Labour at the Stoke-on-trent Central by-election earlier this year.

The party was hoping to make gains in the Boston and Skegness seat, which yielded one of the highest votes for Leave in last year’s EU referendum.

But Mr Nuttall saw Ukip’s share of the vote slide 26.1 per cent to 3,308 votes, while Labour increased its vote by 8.5 per cent to 10,699 and the Tories by 19.8 per cent to 27,271.

In Clacton, Ukip slumped from a vote of 19,642 in 2015 for Douglas Carswell to 3,347 for Paul Oakley, the candidate who replaced him after he quit the party.