I once wrote that Nigel Farage is staying away from leading a populist revolt for reasons known only to himself. Well, we’re no longer guessing: he has come out all guns blazing to do exactly this, lead a ‘revolt,’ even using that provocative word.
His plan, according to his own testimony—which is only to be half-believed—is not to win the next election, which he thinks will be impossible, but to lead the opposition and be a thorn in the side of the Labour Party for the next half decade. He tells us that his decision to burst onto the political scene again was in no way premeditated, but it comes after a crisis of conscience which he had to contend with over a pint of ale in his local pub. Seeing where the country is going, he felt that he could not just stand by and watch the nation he loves fall apart. He just had to step back into the arena; he wouldn’t have been able to look at himself in the mirror otherwise. So, there, over his dimple mug of bitter, he heroically wrestled with his conscience, and within three minutes he’d won.
However difficult it might be to believe this account, the fact is that it doesn’t matter. His story of why he has relaunched his game discloses something about Farage which has been a chief characteristic of his political prowess for decades and has made him the most influential British politician of this century. I refer to his almost preternatural ability to read the nation.
His talk of a failing Britain, of the widespread sense of hopelessness, the rise in crime, the unstoppable wave of immigration, the betrayal of their voters by the governing Tories, the moral disintegration of the population, and the need for a patriotic renewal of national life was like listening to a list of primary talking points in any Home Counties’ Wetherspoons. I know, because I drink in a Wetherspoons.
Amid the mythos that he was ingeniously constructing before our eyes of how he managed to overcome his more fainthearted self, and agonisingly re-enter politics for the sake of his people—followed by references to his dogs, a day’s fishing, and to his local pub—he was essentially signalling to a lost and disenchanted Britain that he cares about what we care about: everyday life beyond the political struggle. Everything was brilliantly calculated and orchestrated—even down to the blue butterfly necktie—to look as organic and spontaneous as possible. And even if it is all an act—as of course it is—it means a lot to us that he makes such an act look as believable as possible. After all, no one finds Rishi in a pub, drinking English bitter, believable (click here to see a man in a Barbour jacket which has never before been worn, looking as at home as a penguin in the Sahara).
The fact is, Farage’s address yesterday was a masterclass in populist statesmanship, which the sneering elites may think an oxymoronic term, but by reading the country in a way no other member of the political class seems able to do, he may soon have the state’s institutions in the palm of his hand (even indirectly as the head of the opposition). And this is so because a vast number of people who have hitherto grown politically disengaged will now be voting again, either to get him closer to the hot seat or to keep him as far from it as possible. In short, British democracy is no longer in crisis.
Until now, British democracy certainly has been in crisis, with fewer and fewer people each year choosing to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Democracy has not been in crisis in this country in the way EU officials accuse it of being so in Hungary, for example—where in fact democracy is working really well, and that’s exactly what irritates them. No, it has been in genuine crisis in the UK for a long time. Well, that has likely been solved with this one speech by Farage.
The question is: what’s next? For out of the shadows of GB News has come our hero, like a Hellenistic hero of old, he has put down his fishing rod, dropped off the labradors, finished his pint, and built his giant horse out of the bits and pieces of the foundering Reform Party. Something tells me that he won’t be content until he’s taken Troy. Oops, I spelt that wrong, I meant to write ‘Tory.’
Yes, Farage wants the perennial party. The only question is whether that’s as its leader or to sack it and raze it. Either he is playing a characteristically brilliant and highly calculated game to become—after another crisis of conscience, obviously—the leader of the Tory Party in half a decade and take His Majesty’s government back, or—much less likely—he’s planning to replace the oldest Party in the world with Reform. Either way, the Farage ascendency means serious business for the Tories. But his breath-taking political theatre means something else: the possibility for ‘deep England’ to become a political force again, which is exactly what the country is crying out for and most certainly needs. Things have just got very interesting.
Reading the Nation: The Farage Ascendency
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks during a campaign meeting, on June 3, 2024, ahead of the UK general election of July 4.
Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP
I once wrote that Nigel Farage is staying away from leading a populist revolt for reasons known only to himself. Well, we’re no longer guessing: he has come out all guns blazing to do exactly this, lead a ‘revolt,’ even using that provocative word.
His plan, according to his own testimony—which is only to be half-believed—is not to win the next election, which he thinks will be impossible, but to lead the opposition and be a thorn in the side of the Labour Party for the next half decade. He tells us that his decision to burst onto the political scene again was in no way premeditated, but it comes after a crisis of conscience which he had to contend with over a pint of ale in his local pub. Seeing where the country is going, he felt that he could not just stand by and watch the nation he loves fall apart. He just had to step back into the arena; he wouldn’t have been able to look at himself in the mirror otherwise. So, there, over his dimple mug of bitter, he heroically wrestled with his conscience, and within three minutes he’d won.
However difficult it might be to believe this account, the fact is that it doesn’t matter. His story of why he has relaunched his game discloses something about Farage which has been a chief characteristic of his political prowess for decades and has made him the most influential British politician of this century. I refer to his almost preternatural ability to read the nation.
His talk of a failing Britain, of the widespread sense of hopelessness, the rise in crime, the unstoppable wave of immigration, the betrayal of their voters by the governing Tories, the moral disintegration of the population, and the need for a patriotic renewal of national life was like listening to a list of primary talking points in any Home Counties’ Wetherspoons. I know, because I drink in a Wetherspoons.
Amid the mythos that he was ingeniously constructing before our eyes of how he managed to overcome his more fainthearted self, and agonisingly re-enter politics for the sake of his people—followed by references to his dogs, a day’s fishing, and to his local pub—he was essentially signalling to a lost and disenchanted Britain that he cares about what we care about: everyday life beyond the political struggle. Everything was brilliantly calculated and orchestrated—even down to the blue butterfly necktie—to look as organic and spontaneous as possible. And even if it is all an act—as of course it is—it means a lot to us that he makes such an act look as believable as possible. After all, no one finds Rishi in a pub, drinking English bitter, believable (click here to see a man in a Barbour jacket which has never before been worn, looking as at home as a penguin in the Sahara).
The fact is, Farage’s address yesterday was a masterclass in populist statesmanship, which the sneering elites may think an oxymoronic term, but by reading the country in a way no other member of the political class seems able to do, he may soon have the state’s institutions in the palm of his hand (even indirectly as the head of the opposition). And this is so because a vast number of people who have hitherto grown politically disengaged will now be voting again, either to get him closer to the hot seat or to keep him as far from it as possible. In short, British democracy is no longer in crisis.
Until now, British democracy certainly has been in crisis, with fewer and fewer people each year choosing to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Democracy has not been in crisis in this country in the way EU officials accuse it of being so in Hungary, for example—where in fact democracy is working really well, and that’s exactly what irritates them. No, it has been in genuine crisis in the UK for a long time. Well, that has likely been solved with this one speech by Farage.
The question is: what’s next? For out of the shadows of GB News has come our hero, like a Hellenistic hero of old, he has put down his fishing rod, dropped off the labradors, finished his pint, and built his giant horse out of the bits and pieces of the foundering Reform Party. Something tells me that he won’t be content until he’s taken Troy. Oops, I spelt that wrong, I meant to write ‘Tory.’
Yes, Farage wants the perennial party. The only question is whether that’s as its leader or to sack it and raze it. Either he is playing a characteristically brilliant and highly calculated game to become—after another crisis of conscience, obviously—the leader of the Tory Party in half a decade and take His Majesty’s government back, or—much less likely—he’s planning to replace the oldest Party in the world with Reform. Either way, the Farage ascendency means serious business for the Tories. But his breath-taking political theatre means something else: the possibility for ‘deep England’ to become a political force again, which is exactly what the country is crying out for and most certainly needs. Things have just got very interesting.
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