Brexit Party Founder
The Brexit Party Limited was registered with Companies House on 22 November 2018 by Catherine Blaiklock acting as company secretary. On 4 December 2018 Farage announced “with a heavy heart” on his live LBC radio show that with immediate effective he had resigned his membership of UKIP, after 25 years as a member of the party. In political terms, The Brexit Party came into being in January 2019 with the central aim of supporting a no-deal Brexit. It was registered with the Electoral Commission on 5 February 2019. Catherine Blaiklock was the company secretary, founder and first leader of The Brexit Party, but her tenure only lasted a couple of months before a furore over anti-Islamic social media posts led to her resignation. Blaiklock had previously been the economics spokesperson for UKIP, a party she had left in 2018 amid the mass resignation of senior UKIP figures, including Nigel Farage, who left on 4 December 2018. The trigger for the resignations was the appointment of Tommy Robinson as an advisor to the party and its increasingly anti-Islamic tone under then leader, Gerard Batten.
The Deal with Farage
Media reports suggest that Blaiklock had made a deal with Farage in 2018 to step aside in April 2019, with Farage taking over and converting the party into a limited company. Blaiklock would later claim that in return for her stepping aside, she would be the party’s candidate in the winnable seat of Great Yarmouth. According to Blaiklock, Farage asked her to resign as a director of The Brexit Party Limited because her social media output could prevent the party from opening a bank account, meaning that it could not function. Farage’s decision to stand down Brexit Party candidates in Tory-held seats meant that she was unable to contest her promised seat. After standing down candidates in all seats that the Conservatives had won in 2017, the Brexit Party contested 275 constituencies and gained a total of 644,257 votes, amounting to a 2% vote share. No Brexit Party MPs were elected.
Brexit Party’s High Watermark
The 2019 European Parliamentary elections took place at a time when Theresa May’s Conservative government, propped up by the DUP, was struggling to get any Brexit deal through parliament. The Brexit Party was campaigning for a no-deal exit. It was a curious election because any successful candidate would be faced with having to resign their seat once the UK had left the EU. Nevertheless, the elections were a resounding success for the Brexit Party under the leadership of Nigel Farage. It topped the poll with a 31.9% vote share, returning 20 MEPs to Strasbourg. The Liberal Democrats, who had campaigned on remaining in the EU came second on 20.3%. Both Labour and the Conservatives, who both had more nuanced positions on Brexit, performed badly. Brexit Party MEPs gained notoriety throughout Europe for their stunts in the European Parliament including Union Jack waving and standing with their backs to the chamber.
Post-Brexit Remoulding
With Brexit completed by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, Farage and Tice renamed the Brexit Party Ltd, Reform Party UK Limited on January 6 2021. Farage stepped down as leader in March 2021 to be replaced by Tice. In August 2023, a compulsory strike off notice was published with the company dissolved a week later. In what seems to have been an administrative oversight, the shareholders of what was now Reform UK Limited, Farage and Tice, allowed the Brexit Party name to become free for adoption and Blaiklock soon bought the rights to the name, although at the time of writing, it had not been registered with the Electoral Commission.
Blaiklock sues Farage
In September 2025, a court ordered Nigel Farage to pay Catherine Blaiklock £9,999 plus costs after she had taken him to court claiming she had been forced out of the party leadership in advance of the 2019 European Parliament elections. Stating they had received no papers related to the case, a spokesperson for Farage indicated his intention to appeal. Blaiklock, who had reportedly been asked in April 2019 to resign over Islamophobic tweets is now most strongly associated with her campaign against Halal meat. She has also declared her support for Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain movement and regularly makes her thoughts on Farage known through her X account.
Blaiklock stood for parliament in the Runcorn and Helsby byelection for the English Democrat party held on 1 May 2025. She came in 12th behind the Monster Raving Loony candidate registering just 95 votes. Reform’s Sarah Pochin won the seat by just 6 votes.
Final thoughts
The list of people who Nigel Farage has fallen out with on his journey from UK to the leader of Reform UK is not a short one. Compared to Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib, Catherine Blaiklock is not a well-known figure on the right of British politics. Nevertheless, she is part of the vocal chorus to the right of Farage alongside, Ben Habib, Rupert Lowe, Tommy Robinson and UKIP’s current leader, Nick Tenconi. As Farage seeks to broaden his appeal wide enough to secure a Reform majority in parliament, he may consider it useful to have what he would see as more extreme views to point to.
On 22nd March 2025, Catherine Blaiklock gave her side of the story to Andrew Eborn.
