Nigel Farage has blamed his busy campaigning schedule for a dry spell of almost 11 weeks during which he failed to register a single vote in Parliament.
The Reform UK leader has now missed the past 77 votes in the House of Commons – including major motions on the King’s Speech and referring Keir Starmer to the Privileges Committee.
He failed to vote at all throughout April and May, with his last action having taken place on March 18 – a ‘no’ on a motion to increase higher education fee limits.
Asked by Metro to explain his absence, Farage said he was running a national campaign for the May 7 elections.
When it was pointed out that other leaders including Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch were able to vote in the days before the elections, he added: ‘Other party leaders don’t travel the country.’
Since Farage last voted on March 18, the Prime Minister has done so six times while the Conservative leader voted nine times.
Everything is changing, all the time
Cut through political noise and understand how the Westminster chaos actually affects your life with Metro’s politics newsletter Alright, Gov? Sign up here.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, meanwhile, voted 34 times in the same period – and still picked up 155 extra councillors in the English local elections.
It has also been nearly 10 weeks since Farage last spoke up in Parliament, at Prime Minister’s Questions on March 25.
He is currently focused on the crucial Makerfield by-election on June 18, which is expected to be a straight fight between Reform candidate Robert Kenyon and Labour’s Andy Burnham.
Farage drew a reaction from Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, when he posted an AI image of small boat migrants holding ‘Vote Andy for us’ posters on Saturday.
The Labour candidate responded: ‘Are you getting desperate, lad? Maybe keep your crypto millions for something else.’
Burnham was referencing a £5 million ‘gift’ given to Farage by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne in January 2024, which is now at the centre of an investigation by Parliament’s standards watchdog.
The Reform leader has previously described it as a donation to help pay for his security and a reward for his years of Brexit campaigning, and says there is ‘no obligation’ to declare it.
It is unclear if he plans to vote in Parliament before the by-election takes place – if not, he will have gone a full three months without voting.
In 2016, the Daily Record reported that Farage had the worst voting record of any active MEP in the European Parliament between July 2014 and May 2016, the month before the Brexit referendum.
It found he had turned up to just 40.7% of all possible roll-call votes, placing him 745th out of 746 MEPs – only finishing ahead of an Irish MEP who never voted due to a disability.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.