It has long been my belief that the UK Conservative Party deserves to get pummelled at the next election. Since gaining office in 2010, successive prime ministers have forced mass immigration on an unwilling people, facilitated the spread of identity politics across every public institution from the army to the schools, and raised the tax burden to its highest level in seventy years. The thinly veiled threat that “Labour would be worse” does not cut it. Must we settle for a devil who represents the country in name while betraying everything its people stand for just because his equally fiendish rival makes no secret of despising us?
I prefer to be the victim of open contempt than the recipient of dishonest flattery, particularly since it is the Tories themselves—not Sir Keir Starmer—who stand arrogantly in the way of a genuine conservative revival. To reward lies and incompetency by voting for them in 2024 is to deserve more of the same. The party needs to get flattened. Then, it must either be replaced altogether or plunged by its (ideally devastating) defeat into an identity crisis so profound that it emerges a different organism in time for 2029. By far the most interesting aspect of the next election will be its aftermath. Once the Conservatives lose, the future will belong to whoever can most effectively present themselves as the source of rejuvenation and renewal. Who will that be?
There has been plenty of talk about Nigel Farage re-joining the Conservative Party he left in 1992 after John Major signed us up to the Maastricht Treaty. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said that Farage would be welcome. Jacob Rees-Mogg has gone so far as to encourage “the great man” to re-join, arguing that Farage’s convictions and charisma are needed to avert a Tory wipe-out and deny Starmer the keys to 10 Downing Street.
Following Rees-Mogg’s advice would be disastrous. There is no upside to saving a Conservative Party that has successively taken the complacency of its voters for granted. While there is still time to save Britain, they must be punished. Most soberingly of all, if the Tories were still to lose in 2024 despite Farage throwing his weight behind their campaign, there is no doubt that all of the worst creatures in the Conservative Party—the ones who really belong in the Liberal Democrats, which is to say a significant chunk of them—would spin the loss as having occurred because of Farage. “What we really need,” the likes of David Gauke and Penny Mordaunt would tell us, “is a return to the sensible centrism of the 1990s”—a period in Britain’s history, by the way, when immigration was running at around a twelfth of what it is today, yet somehow John Major and other self-styled Tory ‘moderates’ manage to dodge the charges of far-right extremism which are instead reserved for the most left-wing government we have ever had.
Thankfully, Farage was wise enough to resist Rees-Mogg’s overtures. Having just attended the Conservative conference in Manchester, where he excoriated the party on GB News by day while dancing with some of its more useless former ministers by night, Farage told Rees-Mogg that he sensed a fear among senior Tories of the main challenge to their right flank: Richard Tice’s Reform UK. The problem is that Tice lacks the magic to catch fire in the way that Farage did in the run-up to the 2015 election. This has left many scratching their heads over why Farage, still listed as the Honorary President of Reform UK, has not relieved the perfectly decent but lacklustre Tice of his leadership. Were he to do so, its fortunes would improve overnight.
Nevertheless, Reform UK poses a credible populist threat to the Conservatives. As its most eloquent spokesman, Ben Habib, recently told me on NCF Deprogrammed, his party means to inflict as much damage to the Tories as possible in key marginal seats up and down the country. The plan, as Habib put it, is “to send a very strong message to government that failure will not be rewarded with incumbency.” This it could still achieve, with or without Farage spear-heading the party’s efforts and regardless of whether Tice or anyone else even wins a single seat.
Farage knows that it would be irresponsible to re-join the Conservative Party at this stage. It would throw a life-line to a rotten ship that is probably destined to sink (and certainly deserves to do so), while also providing those most responsible for rupturing the hull with an opportunity to blame someone other than themselves when calamity strikes. So, why is Farage not seizing the reins of Reform UK and giving the party the momentum it needs to finish off the Tories for good?
His masterplan, in my view, is to continue taking a temporary backseat from frontline politics. He will wait for the Conservatives to get obliterated in 2024 before re-joining their ranks and standing as leader. A small rump of Tory MPs, feeling scarred by defeat, will be more receptive than the current crop of Conservatives at Westminster to any attempt by Farage to cast himself as a credible saviour. “Après le déluge, moi,” he will tell them, or at least the earthiest Anglo-Saxon equivalent he can find. First, he will have to find a seat for himself. But then, with a slimmed down Tory parliamentary party, consisting of politicians who will for the most part represent solidly conservative constituents, Farage could succeed in gathering enough nominations among MPs to land himself a spot in the final round—a two-horse race decided by Conservative members, most of whom love Farage—and claim the prize that has long eluded him under Britain’s electoral system: leadership of a mainstream party.
This, I believe, is Farage’s plan. It would explain why he has not taken over Reform UK. Eating triumphantly into the Tory vote will not endear Farage to the Conservative MPs left standing in 2024 and may even damage his popularity among members. After all, many would blame him for laying out the red carpet for Starmer. By standing back, he can avoid such opprobrium and pose as both a friendly face and a saving grace alike. Moreover, if he won the leadership, this would have the welcome effect of alienating those Tories who have no business being in a party calling itself conservative anyway. Many a pinko—Rory Stewart, Nick Boles, Dominic Grieve, etc.—faded into irrelevance after leaving the Conservatives in protest over Brexit. No one cared, because such people are too left-wing to attract Tory voters but not left-wing enough to impress anyone else. Another clear-out is in order.
However, such a plan is also fraught with problems. Farageism is nothing if it is not uncompromisingly restrictionist on immigration. Yet, who would be his allies in the party if not the hardcore admirers of Boris Johnson who said nothing when the former prime minister flung Britain’s borders wide open like a nutty libertarian? The extent of this betrayal is wildly under-appreciated and there is every reason to be concerned about Farage’s chumminess with many of Johnson’s most faithful hero-worshippers such as Rees-Mogg and Patel. Only a few months ago, there was even speculation about a possible duumvirate between Farage and Johnson. Such an alliance will only be worth celebrating if the latter is so void of conviction, he can shape-shift into a hawk at the border and pretend he has ever been thus. Still, the safest option is to leave Johnson in the wilderness. His star-power has faded in any case. The excitement of 2019 now seems very quaint indeed.
If what I am imagining to be Farage’s strategy is successful, he will have pulled off the most dramatic internal regime change in the history of the Conservative Party. Its only rival would be the conversion to free trade led by Sir Robert Peel, who in 1846 abandoned his voter base among the Tory squirearchy and repealed the Corn Laws with the support of Whig grandees. The vital difference is that whereas that deeply divisive episode left the Tories in disarray and effectively shut them out of government for decades, the revolution that Farage is likely considering, if not already plotting, could be the Conservative Party’s sole guarantee against oblivion.
“Après le déluge, moi”: Nigel Farage’s Masterplan?
It has long been my belief that the UK Conservative Party deserves to get pummelled at the next election. Since gaining office in 2010, successive prime ministers have forced mass immigration on an unwilling people, facilitated the spread of identity politics across every public institution from the army to the schools, and raised the tax burden to its highest level in seventy years. The thinly veiled threat that “Labour would be worse” does not cut it. Must we settle for a devil who represents the country in name while betraying everything its people stand for just because his equally fiendish rival makes no secret of despising us?
I prefer to be the victim of open contempt than the recipient of dishonest flattery, particularly since it is the Tories themselves—not Sir Keir Starmer—who stand arrogantly in the way of a genuine conservative revival. To reward lies and incompetency by voting for them in 2024 is to deserve more of the same. The party needs to get flattened. Then, it must either be replaced altogether or plunged by its (ideally devastating) defeat into an identity crisis so profound that it emerges a different organism in time for 2029. By far the most interesting aspect of the next election will be its aftermath. Once the Conservatives lose, the future will belong to whoever can most effectively present themselves as the source of rejuvenation and renewal. Who will that be?
There has been plenty of talk about Nigel Farage re-joining the Conservative Party he left in 1992 after John Major signed us up to the Maastricht Treaty. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said that Farage would be welcome. Jacob Rees-Mogg has gone so far as to encourage “the great man” to re-join, arguing that Farage’s convictions and charisma are needed to avert a Tory wipe-out and deny Starmer the keys to 10 Downing Street.
Following Rees-Mogg’s advice would be disastrous. There is no upside to saving a Conservative Party that has successively taken the complacency of its voters for granted. While there is still time to save Britain, they must be punished. Most soberingly of all, if the Tories were still to lose in 2024 despite Farage throwing his weight behind their campaign, there is no doubt that all of the worst creatures in the Conservative Party—the ones who really belong in the Liberal Democrats, which is to say a significant chunk of them—would spin the loss as having occurred because of Farage. “What we really need,” the likes of David Gauke and Penny Mordaunt would tell us, “is a return to the sensible centrism of the 1990s”—a period in Britain’s history, by the way, when immigration was running at around a twelfth of what it is today, yet somehow John Major and other self-styled Tory ‘moderates’ manage to dodge the charges of far-right extremism which are instead reserved for the most left-wing government we have ever had.
Thankfully, Farage was wise enough to resist Rees-Mogg’s overtures. Having just attended the Conservative conference in Manchester, where he excoriated the party on GB News by day while dancing with some of its more useless former ministers by night, Farage told Rees-Mogg that he sensed a fear among senior Tories of the main challenge to their right flank: Richard Tice’s Reform UK. The problem is that Tice lacks the magic to catch fire in the way that Farage did in the run-up to the 2015 election. This has left many scratching their heads over why Farage, still listed as the Honorary President of Reform UK, has not relieved the perfectly decent but lacklustre Tice of his leadership. Were he to do so, its fortunes would improve overnight.
Nevertheless, Reform UK poses a credible populist threat to the Conservatives. As its most eloquent spokesman, Ben Habib, recently told me on NCF Deprogrammed, his party means to inflict as much damage to the Tories as possible in key marginal seats up and down the country. The plan, as Habib put it, is “to send a very strong message to government that failure will not be rewarded with incumbency.” This it could still achieve, with or without Farage spear-heading the party’s efforts and regardless of whether Tice or anyone else even wins a single seat.
Farage knows that it would be irresponsible to re-join the Conservative Party at this stage. It would throw a life-line to a rotten ship that is probably destined to sink (and certainly deserves to do so), while also providing those most responsible for rupturing the hull with an opportunity to blame someone other than themselves when calamity strikes. So, why is Farage not seizing the reins of Reform UK and giving the party the momentum it needs to finish off the Tories for good?
His masterplan, in my view, is to continue taking a temporary backseat from frontline politics. He will wait for the Conservatives to get obliterated in 2024 before re-joining their ranks and standing as leader. A small rump of Tory MPs, feeling scarred by defeat, will be more receptive than the current crop of Conservatives at Westminster to any attempt by Farage to cast himself as a credible saviour. “Après le déluge, moi,” he will tell them, or at least the earthiest Anglo-Saxon equivalent he can find. First, he will have to find a seat for himself. But then, with a slimmed down Tory parliamentary party, consisting of politicians who will for the most part represent solidly conservative constituents, Farage could succeed in gathering enough nominations among MPs to land himself a spot in the final round—a two-horse race decided by Conservative members, most of whom love Farage—and claim the prize that has long eluded him under Britain’s electoral system: leadership of a mainstream party.
This, I believe, is Farage’s plan. It would explain why he has not taken over Reform UK. Eating triumphantly into the Tory vote will not endear Farage to the Conservative MPs left standing in 2024 and may even damage his popularity among members. After all, many would blame him for laying out the red carpet for Starmer. By standing back, he can avoid such opprobrium and pose as both a friendly face and a saving grace alike. Moreover, if he won the leadership, this would have the welcome effect of alienating those Tories who have no business being in a party calling itself conservative anyway. Many a pinko—Rory Stewart, Nick Boles, Dominic Grieve, etc.—faded into irrelevance after leaving the Conservatives in protest over Brexit. No one cared, because such people are too left-wing to attract Tory voters but not left-wing enough to impress anyone else. Another clear-out is in order.
However, such a plan is also fraught with problems. Farageism is nothing if it is not uncompromisingly restrictionist on immigration. Yet, who would be his allies in the party if not the hardcore admirers of Boris Johnson who said nothing when the former prime minister flung Britain’s borders wide open like a nutty libertarian? The extent of this betrayal is wildly under-appreciated and there is every reason to be concerned about Farage’s chumminess with many of Johnson’s most faithful hero-worshippers such as Rees-Mogg and Patel. Only a few months ago, there was even speculation about a possible duumvirate between Farage and Johnson. Such an alliance will only be worth celebrating if the latter is so void of conviction, he can shape-shift into a hawk at the border and pretend he has ever been thus. Still, the safest option is to leave Johnson in the wilderness. His star-power has faded in any case. The excitement of 2019 now seems very quaint indeed.
If what I am imagining to be Farage’s strategy is successful, he will have pulled off the most dramatic internal regime change in the history of the Conservative Party. Its only rival would be the conversion to free trade led by Sir Robert Peel, who in 1846 abandoned his voter base among the Tory squirearchy and repealed the Corn Laws with the support of Whig grandees. The vital difference is that whereas that deeply divisive episode left the Tories in disarray and effectively shut them out of government for decades, the revolution that Farage is likely considering, if not already plotting, could be the Conservative Party’s sole guarantee against oblivion.
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