The Left’s Greatest Weapon - Nigel Farage

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Nigel Farage is once again set to shake up British politics, this time by becoming an unlikely asset for the left. Farage's previous ventures with the UK Independence Party (Ukip) and the Brexit Party had seismic impacts. Ukip's pressure led to the 2016 EU referendum, and the Brexit Party's success in the 2019 European Parliament elections showcased his ability to fragment Tory support. As Farage reenters the political fray, his actions appear to be the left’s greatest boon in the upcoming elections.

 

Farage’s return to the political stage, having replaced Richard Tice as the leader of Reform UK, has set the stage for another significant disruption. Opinion polls currently predict a potentially devastating outcome for the Conservatives, with forecasts suggesting they could be reduced to as few as 50 seats, possibly even fewer than the Liberal Democrats. Labour leader Keir Starmer seems poised for a sweeping victory, with some polls indicating he could secure around 450 seats. This would grant him a robust majority and the ability to enforce party discipline with ease. Starmer’s rhetoric of a "decade of renewal" reflects his confidence, largely fueled by Farage’s influence in splintering the Conservative vote.

 

Richard Tice’s motto for Reform UK, "Vote Reform, get reform," aims to present a conservative platform without the Conservatives. Their manifesto, advocating for NHS reform, lower taxes, immigration control, and opposition to net-zero targets and transgender policies in schools, closely mirrors traditional Tory policies. Despite this, the Westminster system’s inherent bias against smaller parties means that even with significant voter support, Reform UK is projected to win only a few seats. This undermines its own agenda by diluting the right-wing vote.

 

Both Starmer and Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey have had underwhelming campaigns. Starmer maintains low personal approval ratings, while Davey has provided light amusement with his stunts. However, Farage has inadvertently become a boon for the Lib Dems, particularly in regions like Surrey and Cornwall, where they are now competitive in constituencies previously dominated by the Conservatives. Farage’s influence has even put traditionally Tory strongholds like Boris Johnson’s old seat of Henley and Tunbridge Wells at risk.

 

The strategy behind Reform UK has been questioned for its lack of coherence. Critics argue that Farage's campaign seems more focused on inflicting damage than on promoting a substantive conservative agenda. Some within the Reform UK ranks, like Charlie Thompson and Tom Wellings, have withdrawn their candidacies to avoid inadvertently helping Labour candidates win. Even prominent figures like Lee Anderson, who defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK, now exercise caution in their campaigns.

 

Farage’s purported long-term strategy of destruction followed by rebuilding is fraught with risks. The precedent set by Canada’s Reform Party, which decimated the conservative vote in 1993 and took nearly 13 years to recover, serves as a cautionary tale. Farage's recent controversial statements, such as his remarks on Vladimir Putin and Ukraine, have sparked backlash and dented his popularity, indicating potential limits to his influence.

Should Starmer achieve a landslide victory, he is expected to leverage his majority to reshape the political landscape in favor of the left. This could involve stricter state regulation of the press, changes to the BBC Charter, and tightening online debate rules. Starmer may also seek to reintegrate the UK into the EU’s regulatory orbit, reversing some of the Brexit measures. Farage’s actions, while aimed at radicalizing the Conservative Party, might ultimately facilitate a long-lasting shift towards left-wing governance.

 

Farage’s third act in British politics underscores the complex interplay of strategy and ideology. While aiming to rejuvenate the right, his current trajectory seems poised to consolidate power for the left, demonstrating the unpredictable and often paradoxical nature of political movements. The coming elections will reveal whether Farage’s gamble will pay off or if it will further entrench the very outcomes he seeks to oppose.

 

Nigel Farage is about to turn British politics upside-down for a third time. His Ukip insurgency forced the Tories to offer the 2016 referendum on the EU and changed history. When his Brexit party pushed Tories into fifth place in our last-ever European parliament elections in 2019, his victory established him as the most effective Tory-slaying machine ever deployed in political battle. If Keir Starmer or Ed Davey could have had one wish before the election, it would have been for Farage to return and attack the Tories, so they could sit back to watch the right eat itself. ‘Farage has become our patron saint,’ says one Lib Dem strategist.

 

So it has proved. Some opinion polls say the Conservatives could be looking at as few as 50 seats, perhaps fewer than the Liberal Democrats. Starmer is believed to be on course for about 450 seats and a majority so large that he could remove the whip from any rebel who defies him and still exert an easy control over parliament. He has started talking about a ‘decade of renewal,’ which shows how he is thinking: thanks to Farage’s Tory-felling, Labour is looking at ten years of power. ‘Vote Reform, get reform,’ said Richard Tice, who was the party’s leader until Farage replaced him earlier last month. But polls suggest that even if 17 percent of voters back Reform, the party will end up with just three seats. This is unfair, but the Westminster system is designed to be unfair. Whatever his intention, Farage has ended up serving as a purely destructive force. He has become the nemesis, not the rejuvenator, of the causes he purports to care about.

 

The Reform UK manifesto looks like a souped-up Conservative pledge card: NHS reform, lower tax, immigration control, ditching net-zero targets, banning ‘transgender ideology’ in schools, replacing HS2. Reform wants to offer conservatism without Conservatives. But its effect will be to halve the number of MPs in parliament to promote these causes. That’s the paradox. Both Starmer and Davey have had lacklustre campaigns. Starmer has achieved his goal of saying nothing of interest. His personal approval ratings are almost as low as Gordon Brown’s in his final days. Davey has spent his time providing light amusement for the television news by falling off waterboards and tightropes and giving CPR to dummies. Meanwhile, Farage has been giving CPR to the Liberal Democrats in seats they would never be able to win on their own.

 

Take Surrey: ten of its 12 constituencies are in play for the Lib Dems. The same is true in Cornwall and much of the southwest. Boris Johnson’s old seat of Henley may fall to Davey’s astonished troops and perhaps even Tunbridge Wells, which has been Tory for more than a century. ‘Farage has become our patron saint,’ says one Lib Dem strategist. ‘He can do more for our chances than we can. Our guys should really dress up as his and campaign for Reform.’

 

What about the argument that Reform’s election campaign is not really about Westminster seats but about purging and steering the Tory party? That voting Reform will make the Tories more radical, more Nigel-esque, more committed to principles of lower tax and small government? A template is waiting in the ‘popular Conservatism’ advocated by Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Suella Braverman. If Farage were really interested in building something new, he might have decided not to put candidates against right-wing Conservatives. Why weaken the cause? But there is no real cause this time: just the schadenfreude of inflicting the damage.

 

Braverman once called for Farage to ‘be welcomed’ by the Conservatives, but her formerly safe seat has become a four-way marginal thanks to Reform. Rees-Mogg went so far as to suggest that Farage could be made a minister in a Conservative government, but his comments haven’t spared him. Polls predict he will lose to Labour in the newly created North East Somerset and Hanham. This is thanks to a challenge by the Reform candidate Paul MacDonnell, a self-styled libertarian trying to unseat Rees-Mogg on the grounds that the Conservatives have become a ‘destructive left-wing organisation.’

 

When Rees-Mogg is being attacked as a sleeper for the left, we can see that Reform does not represent a coherent strategy or political philosophy but something entirely new and rather extraordinary: a party that exists merely to subvert rather than to promote its own cause. This is even dawning on a few Reform activists. One, Charlie Thompson, has pulled out of the election saying that he realised he would end up helping Labour replace Simon Clarke, a former Tory minister and low-tax Brexiteer. Reform UK was furious and has backed Rod Liddle, who’s running for the Social Democratic party.

 

Tom Wellings, a lawyer, was due to stand for Reform against Gavin Williamson, the former education secretary, but stood down once he realised he would pave the way for a Labour MP. ‘This is a matter of deep concern to me and should be to anyone who supports the policies and agenda of Reform UK,’ he said. Lee Anderson, the former Conservative deputy chairman, used to warn that a vote for Reform helps Labour – before he was thrown out of the party and defected to Reform. He now says he won’t actively campaign against certain Tories, but there aren’t many others showing such restraint in his new party. Farage’s argument is that he’s playing the first part of a long-term game: destroy, then rebuild. It’s not hard to see what happens next.

 

Credit: The Spectator 2024-06-28

 

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[roquefort]

Poorly written, repetitive article trying and failing miserably to defend the indefensible.

 

The Tory party has abandoned conservative values and represents an amorphous uniparty blob with Starmer's equally unappealing Labour party. Farage is playing the long game. After the Tories are wiped out at this election they will clamour for a saviour. That's his real objective.

[Purdey]

Bring back the Liberal party. At least they used to get important things done: social insurance and the reduction of the power of the House of Lords; the establishment of a national system of education, voting by secret ballot, the legalization of trade unions, the enfranchisement of the working class in rural areas, reconstruction of the army (involving the abolition of the purchase of commissions), reform of the judicial system and the foundations of the British welfare state. 

Now they look pathetic and parties like Reform offer no change, just more bull, racism and help-yourself mentality.

 

[parallelman]

Geez, how can such a small country have such gigantic problems? @#$%^& politicians.

[RayC]

2 hours ago, roquefort said:

Poorly written, repetitive article trying and failing miserably to defend the indefensible.

 

I think the exact opposite. I don't agree with all the author's conclusions, but it is a well written piece, full of well articulated arguments. If by "..defend the indefensible", you mean the current status quo then I don't see that at all.

 

2 hours ago, roquefort said:

 

The Tory party has abandoned conservative values and represents an amorphous uniparty blob with Starmer's equally unappealing Labour party. Farage is playing the long game. After the Tories are wiped out at this election they will clamour for a saviour. That's his real objective.

 

The Tory (and Labour) party is - and always has been - a broad church. It is a by-product of our 'first past the post' system. If you want to gain office at Westminster then you must join one of the two major parties, which means that both parties attract a broad spectrum of people and views.

 

Given that context, I disagree completely with the implication that the current Tory party has moved leftwards; if anything the opposite is the case. Sunak and Truss are more naturally right-wing than any Tory leader since Thatcher; Johnson - ironically probably a more centralist Tory at heart - owed his position to the backing of the extreme right-wing ERG (I use 'extreme' in the context of the Tory party, not the broader political spectrum), having firstly had to purge the party of more centralist Tories e.g. Clarke, Stewart. Therefore, I would suggest that the current crop of Tory MPs is probably more right wing than any in the past 40 years.

 

For me, the most interesting sentence in the article - and one which with I agree - is, "Reform does not represent a coherent strategy or political philosophy but something entirely new and rather extraordinary: a party that exists merely to subvert rather than to promote its own cause". Imo this sums up Farage. He got Brexit, but was never going to be held accountable or responsible for its' implementation or success. Post-election, if Farage does migrate to the Tories, he will once again be free from accountability or responsibility as the Tories will, almost certainly, be in opposition. The acid test for Farage will come if he ever achieves office although, given his age, that is unlikely.

 

Imo Farage is an excellent and successful lobbyist, but - to date at least - no more than that.

[roquefort]

2 hours ago, RayC said:

 

Given that context, I disagree completely with the implication that the current Tory party has moved leftwards; if anything the opposite is the case. Sunak and Truss are more naturally right-wing than any Tory leader since Thatcher; Johnson - ironically probably a more centralist Tory at heart - owed his position to the backing of the extreme right-wing ERG (I use 'extreme' in the context of the Tory party, not the broader political spectrum), having firstly had to purge the party of more centralist Tories e.g. Clarke, Stewart. Therefore, I would suggest that the current crop of Tory MPs is probably more right wing than any in the past 40 years.

Truss is certainly further to the right and put forward some interesting policies as PM, but her ill-timed and poorly presented budget got her kicked into the long grass. She was of course chosen by party members, not MPs, so your assertion that the current crop is right wing doesn't get past first base.

 

Sunak is a cardboard cut-out politician, swaying with the winds and the opinion polls towards whatever policies he thinks will win votes. I honestly don't know what his political philosophy is (if he has one).

[Chomper Higgot]

The UK’s Channel 4 expose on the Reform ‘Party’ demonstrates precisely why Farage and his band of racists are a gift to Labour, or indeed any progressive party in this election.

 

 

[RayC]

19 minutes ago, roquefort said:

Truss is certainly further to the right and put forward some interesting policies as PM, but her ill-timed and poorly presented budget got her kicked into the long grass. She was of course chosen by party members, not MPs, so your assertion that the current crop is right wing doesn't get past first base.

 

Sunak was not elected by the wider Tory membership; he was selected by MPs. Prior to that, Tory party members were presented with the choice of Sunak or Truss, all other candidates having been eliminated in a series of elections in which only Tory MPs could vote. The fact that two right wing candidates, Sunak and Truss, made it to the final supports my assertion that the Conservative Parliamentary Party is itself right-wing. 

 

19 minutes ago, roquefort said:

Sunak is a cardboard cut-out politician, swaying with the winds and the opinion polls towards whatever policies he thinks will win votes. I honestly don't know what his political philosophy is (if he has one).

 

Sunak has shown himself to be conservative wrt social policy. Economically, in rejecting the majority of Truss' madcap ideas, Sunak has, by default, shown himself to be pragmatic but he is a neo liberalist economist at heart.

 

The Economist concluded that Sunak was the most right-wing leader since Thatcher and I agree with them.

[roquefort]

55 minutes ago, RayC said:

The Economist concluded that Sunak was the most right-wing leader since Thatcher and I agree with them.

I wonder what Thatcher would have made of Sunak's largesse with other people's money during Covid. 17 billion lost to fraudulent 'bounceback loans', countless billions wasted in unused PPE, 37 billion (!) on a track and trace system that didn't work and was quickly abandoned. I suspect she would be turning in her grave.

[nauseus]

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

The UK’s Channel 4 expose on the Reform ‘Party’ demonstrates precisely why Farage and his band of racists are a gift to Labour, or indeed any progressive party in this election.

 

 

 

No it doesn't.

[Chomper Higgot]

52 minutes ago, nauseus said:

 

No it doesn't.

Opinions differ:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/28/starmer-shocked-by-reform-volunteers-racist-and-homophobic-comments

[RayC]

1 hour ago, roquefort said:

I wonder what Thatcher would have made of Sunak's largesse with other people's money during Covid. 17 billion lost to fraudulent 'bounceback loans', countless billions wasted in unused PPE, 37 billion (!) on a track and trace system that didn't work and was quickly abandoned. I suspect she would be turning in her grave.

 

I imagine that Thatcher would have reacted exactly the same way as the vast majority of us at the fraudulent 'bounceback loans', the  unused and wasted PPE and the £37 billion spent on an unnecessary 'track and trace' system: With outrage and incredulity.

 

Personally, I am more understanding of  the government's other decisions - including the furlough payments - during the initial COVID period. I was less convinced of their responses during the second and third phases.

[john donson]

he explained clearly the history of ukraine that started in 2014 with the coup that removed a democratic elected president to be replaced by a puppet and the promises of NATO to expand to the east...which they broke over and over

 

USA is interested in ukraine because of TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF RARE MINERALS , why you think BLACKROCK will rebuild, on paper, more exploit

[Seppius]

16 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

The UK’s Channel 4 expose on the Reform ‘Party’ demonstrates precisely why Farage and his band of racists are a gift to Labour, or indeed any progressive party in this election.

 

 

You do realize by now it was a set-up by Channel 4, the guy was an actor who had worked for Channel 4 before, basically paid by them to say what he did, C4 is a known left wing channel

 

.

 

[RayC]

5 hours ago, Seppius said:

You do realize by now it was a set-up by Channel 4, the guy was an actor who had worked for Channel 4 before, basically paid by them to say what he did, C4 is a known left wing channel

 

.

 

 

Andrew Parker has described himself as a property developer, a part-time actor and a Reform supporter.

 

Even 'The Mail' is having problems defending the indefensible.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13579777/Yes-actor-Reform-campaigner-Activist-filmed-calling-Rishi-P-says-goaded-remarks-claims-racist-hes-Muslim-girlfriends-insists-wasnt-paid-infiltrate-party.html

[RayC]

6 hours ago, john donson said:

he explained clearly the history of ukraine that started in 2014 with the coup that removed a democratic elected president to be replaced by a puppet and the promises of NATO to expand to the east...which they broke over and over

 

USA is interested in ukraine because of TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF RARE MINERALS , why you think BLACKROCK will rebuild, on paper, more exploit

 

The democratically elected President of Ukraine was ousted in 2014 because instead of signing the EU-Ukraine Political and Economic Agreement, which was the main policy on which he was elected, he unilaterally decided to ditch this platform and attempt to forge a closer relationship with Putin. 

 

Is it any wonder that the Ukrainian public rebelled?

[Seppius]

16 minutes ago, RayC said:

 

Andrew Parker has described himself as a property developer, a part-time actor and a Reform supporter.

 

Even 'The Mail' is having problems defending the indefensible.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13579777/Yes-actor-Reform-campaigner-Activist-filmed-calling-Rishi-P-says-goaded-remarks-claims-racist-hes-Muslim-girlfriends-insists-wasnt-paid-infiltrate-party.html

 

told Sky News the sting operation had "proper taught me a lesson".

He said: "There's lots of old people like me who are sick to death of this woke agenda… but on that particular day, I was set up and set up good and proper.

"It's proper taught me a lesson - I was a total fool."

 

When the Telegraph spoke to Andrew Parker earlier he denied being an actor.

 

I think he was Playing Alf Garnet that day