Nigel Farage<\/a> is in town tonight to address a rally in front of thousands.<\/p>\nCentral to his message, delivered at the South of England Showground in Ardingly, will be one pertinent to this largely rural county but equally transferable across Britain: \u201cA vote for Reform UK on May 7 is a vote to defend democracy, fix broken Britain, and finally put the British people first. Together, we stopped them from abolishing democracy. Now together, we can start rebuilding Britain, one council at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Prime](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6820313.jpg\" "\\"Prime")
<\/p>\n
Nigel Farage will say Labour and Keir Starmer have been a disaster for Britain (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n
The Tories lost control of Wealden District Council which is now run by a Lib Dem, with a Green deputy, who lead a ragbag cooperative coalition.<\/p>\n
And for months Crowborough is where anger and frustration has fermented over Labour\u2019s decision to house 600 single and unvetted men who entered Britain illegally at a former army training camp.<\/p>\n
To its credit the local council formally opposed the idea and served a planning contravention notice against the Home Office.<\/p>\n
But it made no difference, largely because the Government remains wilfully ignorant to the concerns of ordinary people.<\/p>\n
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood – who has stated that illegal immigration is \u201ctearing our country apart\u201d – has defended the decision to use the former military training base to house asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
Her reasoning? It is cheaper than hotels.<\/p>\n
That might be so, but the taxpayer still foots the bed and board bill and more importantly it does absolutely nothing to address the issue of arrivals.<\/p>\n
Last year almost 50,000 illegal migrants made it across the Channel in small boats, an issue Mr Farage will doubtless point out.<\/p>\n
Although he was born and raised in neighbouring Kent he will feel at home in Sussex, which has a long and rich history as the epicentre of political earthquakes, and whose unofficial motto is “We wunt be druv” (we will not be driven) asserting its people have a stubborn, independent spirit.<\/p>\n
The Battle of Hastings in 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, started the Norman Conquest of England.<\/p>\n
In 1264 victory at the Battle of Lewes made Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, the uncrowned King of England and led to the formation of the first Parliament.<\/p>\n
Between 1555 and 1557, during the Marian persecutions of Queen Mary, 17 Protestants known as the Lewes Martyrs were burned at the stake for refusing to recant their faith.<\/p>\n
And on October 12, 1984 the IRA attempted to assassinate members of the British government, including prime minister Margaret Thatcher, at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Five people were killed, including Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, and more than 30 were injured.<\/p>\n
Disruptor Mr Farage has already challenged established political norms, institutions, and party systems.<\/p>\n
And seizing Sussex, once served by Tory big hitters including Sir Peter Bottomley, Ian Gow, Tim Loughton, Amber Rudd, and Sir Nick Gibb, would be the jewel in Reform\u2019s crown.<\/p>\n
Ahead of his arrival he said: \u201cI\u2019m coming to Sussex because it deserves better than the managed decline delivered by Labour and the Conservatives<\/a>. They have broken Britain, and they refuse to admit it.<\/p>\n\u201cThis campaign is about telling the truth and offering real change. Reform UK is ready to fix Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steal Sussex and he might just have the chance.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage is odds-on to become the next prime minister (Image: Getty) For centuries the historic county of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,14139,4884,9895,40,807,384,1144,386,712,242380,16,15,1764],"class_list":["post-848813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-general-election","tag-great-britain","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-immigration","tag-keir-starmer","tag-nigel-farage","tag-northern-ireland","tag-reform-uk","tag-scotland","tag-sussex-politics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116288595354986999","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Reform](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6820308.jpg\" "\\"Reform")
<\/p>\n