What changed? Until his press conference yesterday lobbed a hand grenade into the stagnant water of this election campaign, Nigel Farage had been emphatic that he would not be standing as a parliamentary candidate for Reform UK; and that he would, in any case, be busy in the United States assisting his friend, the convicted felon Donald Trump, seek a second presidential term.
According to the yarn that he spun yesterday, it was a sense of patriotic responsibility to the people of this nation that inspired his volte-face. On the campaign trail, he had (he said) been afflicted by a “terrible sense of guilt” that he was letting down millions of voters who were already being betrayed by the Labour-Conservative establishment, and that it was time to lead not only his party but “a political revolt … a turning of our backs on the political status quo”.
The truth surely owes more to strategic guile than lion-hearted valour. At the Conservative conference in October, Farage was in every sense the life and soul of the party — present as a broadcaster for GB News but really sizing up the movement as the next target of his life-long entryism.
He gleefully hinted that he might rejoin the Tory Party (which he left in 1992 over the Maastricht Treaty), seek election as an MP and make an eventual bid for the leadership.
Yet — as yesterday’s YouGov mega-poll showed — the Conservatives are now on course not only for defeat but a potential wipe-out in which 12 Cabinet ministers are presently forecast to lose their seats.
Farage’s theatrical insurgency has added a lurid splash of colour, but it will also bring a strain of toxicity
Farage has long dreamt of leading a realignment of the Right. What he has clearly concluded is that he would be better placed to do so as the freewheeling Reform MP for Clacton than as a prodigal son returned to the smouldering ruins of the Tory Party.
As so often with Farage, there is an element of recklessness in his plan. True, Clacton is fertile terrain for a talented politician of the populist Right; previously held by Douglas Carswell, who defected from the Tories to the UK Independence Party in 2014 and retained the seat in the by-election that he himself forced. But, to avoid an eighth failed attempt to become an MP, Farage must overturn the majority of 24,702 secured in 2019 by the Conservative incumbent, Giles Watling. He cannot take success for granted.
To be fair to Farage, it was clear yesterday that he does not. Though he is often, and correctly, praised for his ability as a communicator and a showman, his greatest asset is what the scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb would call “anti-fragility”. He understands that, in the transformed landscape of 21st century politics, there are no safe bets, no setback is permanent and that volatility is the only constant.
Less than five years ago, he had helped deliver Boris Johnson an 80-seat majority by standing down Brexit Party candidates in the 317 seats that the Tories had won at the previous election. This time, he is already operating on the basis that Labour is going to win and will be merciless in seeking to take votes from the Conservatives wherever he can.
This is undoubtedly bad news for Rishi Sunak who has been campaigning ultra-defensively, focusing on the Tory core vote in a bid to minimise the Reform vote in Conservative-held constituencies. That task just became very much harder.
Farage’s theatrical insurgency has certainly added a lurid splash of technicolor to a campaign that had threatened to be a choice between varieties of beige. But it will also bring a strain of toxicity to the election.
In particular, his recent remarks about Islam — and “a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values” — have gone far beyond the boundaries of routine culture wars. He has declared this the “immigration election” (as though the economy was scarcely an issue).
Whether or not he prevails in Clacton, Farage has already done much to ensure that some form of Maga UK is the dominant force in British Right-wing politics after the election.
He made history once by persisting in his long battle to haul Britain out of the European Union. He is now going for the double, by aiming his fire on what remains of the technocratic centre-Right.
It is, and has long been, his habit to play the court jester. But behind the grin is ruthless intent. Underestimate this poisonous politician at your peril.
