For decades, Nigel Farage has been treated as a kind of punchline by the legacy media and the British left-elite. He may well end up having the last laugh.
Politicians (indeed people in general) are able to see the flaws in their opponents much more easily than they can see flaws in themselves. They can’t see themselves as others see them. And this is the fate that awaits almost every argument that the mainstream will make against Nigel Farage over the next four years.
The commonest attack line is that Farage doesn’t have any real policies. He is, supposedly, just a spoiler with an irritating habit of pointing out exactly what everyone knows but isn’t allowed to say. This, to some extent, has some truth to it.
But it’s even more true of the two Establishment parties.
Labour won a landslide and then turned up in Downing Street completely unsure what to do next. And everyone saw this. As sympathetic as I am to the critique of Farage, I don’t think voters are going to buy this from the government.
Nor from the Conservatives who spent the last decade not having any real policies. At least, none that weren’t lifted from the opinion pages of the Guardian. Even new(ish) leader Kemi Badenoch, who at least actually is a conservative of sorts, has tried to make refusing to commit to policies a supposed virtue of her leadership.
Then there is the suggestion that, far from having no policies, Farage supports alarming ones, such as privatising the NHS. It is vanishingly unlikely he will advance this at the election. But more important, it is blind to the fact that voters think the government’s policies (even ones I support, such as on the winter fuel allowance) are alarming.
As they did with Trump in the US, the establishment will clutch their pearls at that awful man – all while voters pay close attention to someone who’s finally listening to them. Even the sclerotic NHS, which is weirdly fetishised by so many Britons, is in dire need of sweeping reform. Not least its stated policy of prioritising illegal immigrants above British citizens.
Another attack line is that Reform is Farage and no one else. There’s a lot to it. Even inside his party this is seen as a worry, and no one is more prone to the thought that he is surrounded by idiots than Farage himself. But the chances of this political critique working electorally are slim.
The messy departure of the excellent Rupert Lowe was no doubt damaging to Reform, at least in the eyes of the legacy media and political tragics, but is unlikely to be much on UK voters’ minds come the next election. And it’s not as if the same doesn’t happen to the major parties all the time.
To put it mildly, it would be hypocritical of the Tories to complain. And it is very likely that the leadership of both main parties will encounter at least as much turbulence.
In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening to the Labor government right now, as former leader Jeremy Corbyn defects, to form a hard-left/Muslim party whose only major effect is to likely drive even more voters to Reform.
Sir Keir Starmer faces a split on Labour’s left flank that appears set to bolster Reform, after Jeremy Corbyn launched a new political party.
After weeks of delay and infighting, the former Labour leader joined Zarah Sultana, also an independent MP, to announce the establishment of “Your Party”.
Or, more honestly: Their Party. Because this will be a party solely for the far-left and radical Islamists.
The movement, which will be given a permanent name by members, is billed as a radical left-wing alternative to Labour, centred around economic policies such as water and mail nationalisation, and a pro-Gaza stance […]
In a sign of the effort to appeal to Muslim voters, Karie Murphy, Corbyn’s chief of staff when he was leader of the opposition, was said to have tried to recruit Lutfur Rahman, the Tower Hamlets mayor, to join the group that will steer the party’s formation.
Corbyn must be pretty chuffed, at least, to finally find some pals who hate Jews almost as much as he does.
