Nigel Farage's Reform UK is predicted to win 13 seats in today's General Election - in a huge exit poll shock.
Opinion polls in the run up to the election suggested Mr Farage's party might win a handful of seats - three to five at most. But exit polls suggest the right-wing party could defy expectations.
And pollster Survation's final seat-by-seat mega-poll matched the exit poll - suggesting Reform would take a string of seats from the Tories and make inroads against Labour. Among the seats expected to fall to Reform UK include Barnsley South and Barnsley North, as well as Hartlepool.
Mr Farage was forced to disown Robert Lomas, Reform's candidate in Barnsley North, after he reportedly said black people should “get off [their] lazy arses” and stop acting “like savages”.
He remains as a Reform candidate on the ballot paper, but would sit as an Independent MP if he wins.
The Sunday Mirror revealed the party's Barnsley South candidate was linked to a Cryptocurrency 'ponzi scheme'.
With the first two actual results in, Reform held strong second places in both Sunderland South and Blyth and Ashington. Mr Farage himself is predicted to win in Clacton - in his eighth tilt at a seat in the Commons. Less clear are the results in Ashfield, where Reform's only sitting MP Lee Anderson is defending his seat - and where the result remains too close to predict.
Former Party leader Richard Tice was also uncertain of winning his target seat of Boston and Skegness.
Nigel Farage's electoral agent Peter Harris has said the Reform UK leader is "up for the challenge" of facing up to a Labour government, and the exit poll prediction of 13 seats for Reform is "hugely exciting". Mr Harris, a Reform UK councillor, told the PA news agency: "We were always hoping for multiple seats, 13 - I'd like even more than that, really. So I think we wait and see once all the votes are counted we'll see how many we've actually got, but yeah, hugely exciting.
"Obviously, I'm completely focused on Clacton and our candidate here, Nigel Farage, we're extremely confident that he's going to be one of those 13 seats that gets elected to Westminster."
On Mr Farage's potential impact in Westminster, Mr Harris said: "He stood alone in the European Parliament, and he got the changes that he wanted and as he said to the European Parliament that when he first got there, they laughed at him and then when we left he said 'well, you're not laughing now'. So you know, I can see Nigel will be a huge voice not just for Clacton but a huge voice for so many people in this country that have felt abandoned and betrayed. So, yeah, I think Nigel is up for the challenge."
