Farage Goes All-in

(Photograph: Derek Bennett, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Although it’s too early to say with any degree of certainty, Monday 3 June 2024 may well go down as a pivotal moment in Britain’s rich political history. What promised to be the dullest general election in living memory has finally been shaken out of its torpor, thanks to an eleventh-hour intervention from Reform UK’s honorary President, Nigel Farage. After months of umming and ahing, and speculation from the wings (much of it, written unashamedly within these pages), Mr Brexit has finally tossed his flat cap into the ring – not, one might add, before time:

Yes, the game is finally on. Not only has Farage reassumed the reins of Reform UK for at least the next five years, he is also campaigning to win the seaside constituency of Clacton – which gives him precisely a month to fulfil his ambition of becoming an MP (eighth time lucky, if all goes to plan).

As I wrote last week, Farage is the blue touch paper conspicuously absent from British politics. And although he initially refused to stand for parliament this time around, it was clear (as it has always been), that were he to do so, he would immediately galvanise a large swathe of the electorate:

So, what’s the solution {to sectarian politics and conservative inertia}? We caught a glimpse of it yesterday, during Reform UK’s press conference in Dover. Unlike any of the other candidates on the docket, Farage looked prime ministerial. He batted away mainstream media sniping with ease and good humour, and with no disrespect to Richard Tice, it was crystal clear who the actual party leader is:

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take this step-by-step. First off, Clacton – can he win? While a month leaves little room for manoeuvre, polling conducted back in January  estimated Farage would win the seat by a comfortable 10% – and that was before he announced his intention to stand. Naturally, one would expect the Tories to throw everything they have into the campaign to keep him out – although they’d be well-advised to avoid the usual tactic of ‘falsifying election expenses’ they employed in South Thanet back in 2015.

The simple fact of the matter is however, Farage should coast home to victory even if he spends the next four weeks campaigning in the local boozer. This isn’t 2015 – this is 2024 and Britain betrayed; betrayed over Brexit, betrayed over open borders and mass immigration, betrayed by the Tories’ abject refusal to deliver any form of conservatism. Not only would I bet my shirt Farage wins the seat, I’d expect a Reform bounce approaching 20% in the polls this time next week. The bookies seem to agree, with Reform’s chances in Clacton swiftly upgraded from 40-64%.

Next, there’s the overall general election performance of Reform UK. While the pollsters tend to predict the sum total of zero seats, there is something they have perhaps not considered sufficiently – something we might dub the ‘Farage factor’. With no disrespect to Richard Tice who has done an admirable job of keeping the party afloat and in double digit poll figures, Farage brings more energy to the debate than all the other leaders combined. Unlike Sunak or Starmer, he is completely at home at the lectern; answering rather than dodging questions. Farage is genuinely at ease with himself and popular with the man in the street – something unlikely to be an act, when one considers his recent accomplishments in the jungle.

There is another arena where Farage is likely to have considerable success, and that is with the youth vote; a vote he has been ostentatiously courting recently via social media. Farage is wise to do so: all across Europe, the young are eschewing their traditional penchant for socialism and instead embracing right-wing figures. If the youth’s customary vote apathy fails to materialise on 4 July, Farage may be well-placed to benefit from it.

The architect of Brexit is clearly aiming high, and the takeaways from his speech were significant. Not only does he predict Reform will definitely win seats and garner more than the four million votes they got back in 2015, he also believes Reform will outperform the Tories in pure voting terms – stating he expects to be ahead of them in the polls as early as next week:

Of course, Reform is not going to win the general election – this is a 5-year plan to rebuild conservative Britain, something I feel Farage has been fairly straight about. Although what that looks like post-election is hard to gauge, because it’s impossible to tell how badly the Tories will be defeated. What is clear however, is that to pull off an amalgamation or hostile takeover of the Conservative Party requires a good performance next month.

There is another element at play here (although you wouldn’t know it from our muted media), and that’s the thousands in attendance for Tommy Robinson’s ‘reclaim London’ march over the weekend. For all the labels of ‘far-right’, ‘Nazi scum’ and ‘football hooligans’, what these patriotic people did was turn up, sing songs and protest peacefully – in total, a mere two arrests were made. The country is ripe for someone to harness that patriotism (particularly since Sunak and Starmer have no taste for such a commodity), and it is highly unlikely that Farage failed to make that connection.

For all the Tory bluster that ‘a vote for Reform is a vote for Labour’, Keir Starmer is going to win the election no matter what – the responsibility for which lies firmly at Sunak’s door. So, the question really comes down to what sort of opposition do you want? Do you want a Conservative Party limping on with socialism lite, or do desire a genuinely conservative alternative that annihilation will force them to adopt?

As the head of Reform UK, Nigel Farage promises to ‘lead a political revolt to topple the Tories’. The New Conservative suggests you lend him your vote – what have you got to lose? However foregone the general election result, two things are now certain: firstly, this will no longer be a boring campaign. And secondly, many millions of decent, hardworking Brits will be waking up for the first time in years accompanied by the thought: ‘The outlook’s bleak, but at least now we have a dog in the fight’.

Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West, and writes a Substack here.

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