Nigel Farage in the Daily Mail…
How do you deal with a problem like Nigel Farage? Not by being more Nigel, for starters.
A lesson lost on Keir Starmer, whose plans to curb net migration announced yesterday caused anguish among some MPs. Did he really have to say that the UK risked becoming an “an island of strangers” without tough new immigration policies?
A sorry scrap of rhetoric too close to something Enoch Powell might have spat out. Labour’s plans are more thoughtful than that. But still – you don’t beat Nigel by being more Nigel.
Personally, I think we all need to be a lot less Nigel.
If I see one more photograph of Farage with his mouth agape in a manic grin – count those fillings; map out those tobacco tidemarks; spy the remains of those long lunches – it will finish me off.
Political commentators of assorted shades are highly excited by the rise of Reform UK, the latest of Farage’s self-made political parties. By the way, I prefer Reform Yuck, as that seems more fitting. Puerile, perhaps. But really – this is a ‘party for the people’ run by ex-public schoolboy millionaires. So, yes, yuck.
Success in the English local elections, one mayoral victory and a paper-thin by-election win in Runcorn are being flourished as stone-carved proof that Farage will be the next prime minister. Mostly by a certain Mr N Farage, whose nuclear self-belief has never been in short supply. Yet beneath that cawl of confidence hides a thin-skinned man who brooks nether disagreement nor questions.
The very idea that such a terrible man could be prime minister falls a mountain short of decency. Of it does if you ask me. The trouble is, I swore voters in the US wouldn’t be stupid enough to give the orange-hued would-be dictator Donald Trump another turn. And we all know how that worked out.
It is still possible everything might fall apart for Farage. This master of the dark arts of self-promotion remains more of a political entertainer than a true politician, a song-and-dance man who hums a hateful tune.
True politics is a slog; it’s boring and takes effort. Farage is far more interested in counting his following on TikTok. That, by the way, is impressive but will it last and will it translate into votes at a long-distant election?
Let’s hope not.
Farage is an expert at setting the political mood – or, perhaps more tellingly, at fouling the political mood. His is the politics of grievance. He has to be against something: the EU, Net Zero policies, cycle lanes, you name it, Nigel will hate it.
What else do Nigel and Reform Yuck wish to do? Oh, only to ‘remoralise’ young people and force them to be patriotic, and if that doesn’t sound sinister to you, your filters could do with a service. Oh, they also want to erect statues to great British figures, and to end “all this woke nonsense”.
How very yawn.
For now, Reform benefits from disillusionment with the main parties. The Tories will take a long time to recover from their electoral drubbing last year; and Labour may well take as long to recover from the weight of their unexpected victory.
Also, Reform Yuck find strength in not being any of the above. Now that they are running some councils, people may well conclude in the end that they’re no better than all the above.
Anyone wishing to know what else Farage would do if he became prime minister may find enlightenment in a ‘manifesto’ cum advertising feature published in the Daily Mail.
The list of his desires included pledges to scrap inheritance tax on estates under £2 million, ditching net zero targets, dropping income tax for those earning under £20,000, fixing the NHS, and bringing back fracking.
Exactly how you fix the NHS while throwing away billions in income tax remains a mystery.
I wonder what the Economist makes of these plans. “Reform’s policies add up to an agenda of fiscal recklessness that rivals, and may well exceed, the disastrous 49-day, hair-raising, market-tanking premiership of Liz Truss in 2022,” the magazine said.
It also estimated that a Reform UK government would cost the economy around £200 billion while only saving £100 billion, creating a “colossal fiscal shock”.
Let’s end with letter in The Times, from Peter Dorey, of Bath. This has been much shared on social media and for good reason…
“I am intrigued that Nigel Farage wants schools to teach British values to remoralise young people. To me, British values include empathy, fairness, honesty, mutual tolerance, open-mindedness, promotion of national unity over divide and rule, and respect for experts and institutions. I do not discern any of these values in Mr Farage.”
I can’t think of anything better to add and will end there.