LONDON: Nigel Farage, leader of the Brussels-bashing UK Independence Party, said yesterday he will not contest a parliamentary seat freed by the resignation of a lawmaker.
Farage said that he wanted to focus on the European parliamentary elections in May and that he had no links with the constituency in Newark, central England.
“I don’t want to do anything that deflects from the European election campaign, so I am not going to stand in this by-election,” Farage told BBC radio.
“I would just look like an opportunist and I don’t think that would work.”
The Newark seat was vacated by former Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, who resigned on Tuesday after facing a six-month ban from parliament over a lobbying scandal, and a by-election to replace him is expected in early June.
UKIP has yet to win a single seat in Britain’s parliament.
But its populist anti-EU, anti-immigration message—plus Farage’s beer-swilling, cigarette-puffing persona—is making it a growing threat to Prime Minister David Cameron’s centre-right Conservatives.
British schoolboy, 15, charged with murdering teacher
LONDON: British police yesterday charged a 15-year-old male pupil with stabbing to death a teacher in class at a Catholic school.
Ann Maguire, 61, who taught Spanish, suffered multiple stab wounds in the incident at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds, northern England.
“A 15-year-old male was arrested in connection with this incident and has been interviewed under caution by police,” Peter Mann of the Crown Prosecution Service said.
“Having carefully considered all of the evidence presented to us by West Yorkshire Police, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to charge this youth with the murder of Ann Maguire and that it is in the public interest to do so.”
The youth was not named in keeping with English law, which normally grants anonymity to juvenile defendants.
Agencies
