This. His base voted for him last time. He is now needing to convince others that haven't been brainwashed by his anti-establishment option nonsense and I don't see them falling for it considering the timing with him finding himself under scrutiny for what many will view as dodgy behaviour. He may even loose voters he fooled into belieiving that he was somehow different to the corrupt established politicians. Chuck in that there may only be one candidate standing against him that all those who don't like Farage can get behind and he could be in trouble, especially if people see a chance to totally humiliate him by voting for a joke candidate. He's taking a huge risk and I don't think he considered all the Parties refusing to get dragged into his stunt.
Picking up on this, and assuming that there's no other Independents standing, making it a straight two horse race.
Will there be fewer voters on the day because their party has put no-one forward, a lower turnout would see him lose the seat.
Throw in the fact that there's candidates waiting in the wings as it were to be the new Reform UK party leader. As "you can't be party leader, if you haven't actually got a seat". Be it at national or local level. The LGA have been meeting in Portsmouth this week, and it's the single biggest gathering of Reform UK leaders, albeit on a local level, since the elections in May.