Afternoon summary
Almost 100,000 people seeking asylum in the UK are waiting for a decision amid growing claims that ministers have massaged official figures to try to show that they have cut the backlog of cases. The Home Office claims that, with an exception made for difficult cases, it has got rid of the backlog for “legacy” asylum applications – defined as those in the system before June 2022 (when the Nationality and Borders Act came into force). See 9.19am. But Rishi Sunak posted a message on X implying the whole backlog was cleared by the end of 2023. Labour said this was a “barefaced lie”. (See 1.37pm.) The official figures show that, although the total backlog is now lower than it was when Sunak became PM, it is still more than double what it was at the time of the last election. (See 3.10pm.)
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Several readers have asked why Nigel Farage was quoted earlier in the blog.
Some people argued that he should be ignored because his views are objectionable. Doubtless a lot of Guardian readers feel the same way, but if reporting is meant to be describing the world as it is, then you can’t just ignore the people and the views you don’t like.
The main objection, though, was that Farage’s views did not merit reporting because he’s not a significant political figure. As one person put it, he’s “now just a reality TV contestant”.
But he’s not. Rather, he is a reality TV contestant, but he’s not just a reality TV contestant. He is almost certainly the most influential, and talented, far-right populist politician in the UK. He did not deliver Brexit singlehandedly, but he did as much as anyone to make it happen, making him one of the most consequential British politicians of the postwar era.
He did all that without being an MP, and quite a lot of the time he wasn’t even Ukip leader either (because he kept resigning). He has got a clear interest in mobilising populist opinion, he has a big following with the public, he is the dominant figure in one political party (Reform UK), and is very popular with members of another (Tories – 70% of members favour letting him rejoin). In the next Conservative party leadership contest any candidate wanting to win is going to say they would allow Farage to be readmitted and it is possible to imagine him back in, and even party leader, before the election after the one due this year. He probably has more chance of leading the Tories into the 2028 general election campaign than Suella Braverman. So I don’t think it’s realistic to argue that his views don’t count; if Brexit is any guide, then people should have been taking him more seriously in the pre-2016 years, not less.
And one reader queried my assertion that he in effect controls Reform UK. When I wrote that, I included a link to this Unherd article by Tom McTague that backs this up. (Links are always included in the blog for a reason – do click on them if you are ever unsure why I am saying something.) McTague’s article is well worth reading in full but here is the relevant passsage.
Reform UK is no ordinary political party. In many ways, it is less a political party than a company, with shareholders and an ever-growing number of customers. Tice may be the leader of the party, but he is ultimately answerable to those shareholders – and the majority are owned by, you guessed it, Farage himself. Originally, the idea behind this set-up was simple. At Ukip, Farage had grown increasingly tired of the party’s internal bureaucratic struggles. When he set up the Brexit party in March 2019, he was determined to avoid a repetition of this, and so created a company he could control, rather than a party he had to manage. This allowed Farage to focus all his efforts on the campaign for Brexit …
While the exact details of who owns what percentages of Reform UK remain veiled in secrecy, according to one inside figure who knows the breakdown it is simple enough. In total there are 15 shares, of which Farage owns eight, Tice five, Oakden one and the party secretary, Mehrtash a’Zami, one. According to Companies House, this makes Farage – officially – a person with “significant control” over the company, which they define as having “the right, directly or indirectly, to appoint or remove a majority of the board of directors”.
McTague says Farage’s colleagues in Reform UK aren’t sure whether or not Farage would rejoin the Tories. McTague says Richard Tice, the Reform UK leader, wants Labour to win the election because he thinks it will introduce electoral reform, making it possible for a small party such as Reform UK to win seats in parliament. Given Keir Starmer’s record on PR, the chances of that seem remote – which is another reason why Farage may one day conclude that the Conservative party would offer him a more useful political platform.
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