Nigel Farage rules out standing in by-election for Brexit-backing Stoke-on-Trent

Eurosceptic firebrand Nigel Farage will not compete in the Stoke-on-Trent by-election for Ukip, his spokesman said on Friday (13 January).

The spokesman told IBTimes UK that there was "no chance" of the former Ukip leader putting his name forward, despite almost 70% of voters in the Midlands constituency backing a Brexit at the EU referendum last June.

Farage recently become a weekly host on LBC Radio and hit the headlines in December when he met US President-elect Donald Trump in New York, making him the first European politician to do so.

The by-election will be triggered once Labour MP Tristram Hunt quits the House of Commons to become the director of London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

The historian was first elected to parliament in 2010 and later served as Ed Miliband's shadow education secretary.

But Jeremy Corbyn's surprise leadership victory in 2015 has seen the moderniser relegated to Labour's backbenches.

"Visiting schools and colleges in Stoke and across the country, meeting with teachers and parents and students, allowed me to see the remarkable commitment of English school leaders to their mission as educationalists," Hunt said in his resignation letter.

"But also it highlighted the harrowing effects of poverty and inequality upon social mobility."

He added: "The frustration, of course, came with the inability to address those motors and implement our policy programme following our defeat in 2015 – and, more broadly, about how the Labour Party should respond to the social, cultural and economic forces which have rocked mainstream social democratic and socialist parties from India to Greece to America."

Hunt secured a majority of more than 5,000 votes at the general election over Ukip and the Conservatives, who both won just over 22% of the vote.

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall has said he wants to replace Labour as the "patriotic voice of the working people" in the north of England. The party will confirm the selection of its candidate on 21 January.

Hunt's plan to quit the Commons comes after Jamie Reed announced his decision to resign as Labour MP for Copeland. A date for the by-elections is yet to be set.