LONDON: The leader of British anti-EU party Ukip Nigel Farage will resign if he fails to win a parliamentary seat at May’s general election, he said in extracts of a book published on Monday.
Farage is campaigning hard to win the South Thanet seat in the House of Commons at the May 7 poll, when experts predict the UK Independence Party (Ukip) will take a handful of seats overall.
But the populist leader said it would be “curtains for me” as Ukip leader if his bid to be elected in the southeast English coastal seat was not successful.
“It is frankly just not credible for me to continue to lead the party without a Westminster seat,” Farage said in his new book The Purple Revolution, serialised by the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
If Farage were to step down, the implications for Ukip could be profound — he is by far the party’s most recognisable figure and has led them to unprecedented success in recent months.
The party currently has two lawmakers in the Commons, both of whom defected from Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party, and it topped the polls in last year’s European elections.
It is currently polling at 15 per cent support, according to the UK Polling Report average of opinion polls, third behind the Conservatives and the main opposition Labour party, who are virtually neck and neck.
Ukip’s policies include pulling Britain out of the European Union and imposing strict controls on immigration.
