Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, reacts at a news conference following the general election

Although there is no doubt that the Labour Party and its leader, the newly appointed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, won the general election in the United Kingdom, another politician was eager to brag about his party's election victory, despite the fact that it was far smaller. This was evident as Starmer began assembling his new cabinet. As he stood on stage to give a speech in London on Friday, a number of demonstrators heckled Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK party and one of the country's most controversial politicians.

Despite the interruptions, he maintained a smile and even heckled his hecklers back, yelling "boring!" aloud as they were led out of the hall.

In Thursday's national election, Reform UK managed to secure a mere five seats in the 650-seat House of Commons within the British Parliament. However, it has five more than it did previously.

Leader of the Reform UK, Nigel Farage

Farage pledged on Friday to work towards ending the current system because he believes that smaller parties find it challenging to equalize their total vote share with the seats they have gained in the Commons under the U.K.'s first-past-the-post election system. However, Farage's true achievement lay in the total number of votes cast, not in the five seats his party managed to secure, one of which was his own first election to the parliament.

With somewhat more than 4 million votes cast, the anti-immigration Reform UK garnered almost 15% of the vote, much to the dismay of the long-ruling Conservative Party, from which it had long since syphoned off a significant portion of support. The party's leader and policies had long been marginalized in British politics.

Reform UK now has the third-highest total vote count of all the parties running for the parliamentary seats, surpassing even the Liberal Democrats, who on Friday took home a record 71 seats in the Commons despite receiving around half a million less votes.

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After seven unsuccessful efforts, Farage, 60, finally won the seat in his home constituency of Clacton, in southeast England. His Reform UK party has always fought on reducing immigration to Britain. It was first established in 2018 as the Brexit Party, calling for an absolute and utter split with the European Union.

Because of his bold political approach and nationalist speech, the Englishman is frequently likened to his transatlantic ally, former US President Donald Trump. He has also visited and attended events with the Republican in Britain.

"Congratulations to Nigel Farage on his big WIN of a Parliament Seat Amid Reform UK Election Success. Nigel is a man who truly loves his Country!" Trump wrote on his own social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday. Mr. Trump made no mention of the Labour Party's landslide election victory, or Starmer becoming the new prime minister.

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Farage's campaign was marred by a number of 11th-hour controversies, mostly involving racist or sexist comments attributed to Reform UK candidates, and on election day he vowed to "professionalize" his party.

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"Those few bad apples that have crept in will be long gone and we will never have any of their type back in our organization," Farage told his supporters, along with the British public and his keenly observing political opponents.

Emmet Lyons on Friday morning as the election results were finalized, the Labour Party Mayor of London Sadiq Khan acknowledged the rise of "popular nativist, nationalist movements," and said Starmer would govern "in the national interest, show humility, be magnanimous and be humble over the course of the next three, four, five years."

"We've got to earn the trust of those that voted Labour, but also try and win the confidence of those that didn't," he said.

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That will surely be among the top priorities for the Labour and Conservative Parties in the next years.

Before the next national election, they will both be keen to develop political plans that will prevent voters from adopting the far-right policies that have become popular throughout Europe in recent years. This trend was also evident this week, even with Reform UK's small representation in Parliament.