In a sludgy, slow-motion trajectory, the pale yellow milkshake found its mark: Far-right political candidate and Donald Trump acolyte Nigel Farage, on the inaugural day of his insurgent campaign for a seat in the British Parliament.

But no display of airborne voter displeasure was going to prevent one of the country's most gleefully polarizing public figures from shaking up what had until then been considered a fairly sedate contest between Britain's two biggest parties. In a surprise announcement in early June, Farage inserted himself as the ruling Conservatives were already forecast to lose decisively to the left-leaning Labor Party.

Some observers believe the return of Farage, 60 — political flamethrower, a key architect of Brexit, leader of a small, stridently anti-immigration party — could lead to a MAGA-like takeover of the Conservative Party, which has played a preeminent role in British politics for nearly 200 years.

And his high-profile presence reintroduces an insistently clamorous voice to what has lately been a nationalist-populist upswelling in Western Europe and beyond, one whose full import may soon become clear.

"He's good at getting attention, and he sees himself as a disrupter, someone who wants to overthrow the established order," said Mark Wickham-Jones, a political science professor at the University of Bristol. "There's not much coherence to his policies, but in terms of his support, that really doesn't matter."

Public opinion polls suggest Farage's party, Reform U.K., will come nowhere near victory in Thursday's general election. But after seven straight losses, he appears poised to succeed — finally — in winning election to the House of Commons, the 223-year-old lower house of Parliament.

Farage, who hails from a leafy village on London's outskirts, is making his eighth parliamentary run in Clacton-on-Sea, a down-at-the-heels seaside town whose jangling arcades, shuttered storefronts and scuffy, darting seagulls can lend it the air of a distorted funhouse mirror. (In Britain, parliamentary candidates do not have to live in their constituencies.)

"Something is happening out there — momentum!" Farage recently told a group of sweaty, enthusiastic supporters at his tiny local headquarters, situated above one of the many garish amusement arcades lining a seaside street.

"It's like millions of simultaneous conversations are going on, at the breakfast table, at the bingo hall, at the pub — 'Oh my God, we were just talking about you!'" he said, sounding almost giddy.

In many ways, Clacton is an electoral venue tailored for Farage.

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