Like him or loathe him, Nigel Farage is a man of destiny. Without him there would almost certainly have been no EU referendum in 2016 – and therefore no Brexit.
He believes, in common with many of those who voted to Leave, that the project has been betrayed by spineless Tories who never really believed in it.
In particular, Mr Farage points to the soaring immigration figures of recent years, which have mocked the promises of Brexiteers that, by getting control of our borders, we would be able to regulate the numbers of people coming here.
His dramatic announcement yesterday afternoon that he will fight the constituency of Clacton – where in the referendum almost 70 per cent of the turnout voted to leave the EU – is nothing less than an attempt to change the face of British politics, and cement his place in history.
Farage could well win Clacton for Reform UK, which would give him a seat in the Commons, and therefore a place at the table in what he hopes will be a realignment of the centre-Right after – as he expects and hopes – the Tories receive a drubbing at the General Election on July 4.
Nigel Farage is a man of destiny, writes Stephen Glover. Without him there would almost certainly have been no EU referendum in 2016 – and therefore no Brexit
Over the weekend, he was explicit about his aims, telling the Sunday Times: ‘I certainly don’t have any trust for them or any love for them [the Tories]. I want to reshape the centre-Right, whatever that means.’
The reshaping that Nigel Farage envisages will only be practicable if the Conservatives haemorrhage hundreds of seats, and become a kind of rump. If they were to lose by a relatively narrow margin, there would probably be no role for him.
When announcing his return to front-line politics for at least the next five years, he predicted that Labour is heading for certain victory because the divided and ineffectual Tories have ‘crushed’ themselves.
In short, Farage, who was yesterday officially anointed the leader of Reform, needs the Tory party to be more or less wiped out if he is to have any prospect of playing a major part in re-inventing the centre-Right. He said that he is leading a ‘political revolt’.
Even without Farage’s personal contribution, despite Rishi Sunak’s best efforts a succession of polls point to electoral humiliation for the Tories. The latest YouGov survey suggests that Labour is on track to win 422 seats as against 140 for the Conservative Party – a bigger majority than achieved by Tony Blair in 1997.
It’s impossible not to admire Farage’s elan and the scope of his ambition. I’ve no doubt that many Tories, including Mr Sunak, are privately shaking in their shoes. This feels like a pivotal moment in British politics.
It is also undoubtedly true that Farage is correct to highlight the disenchantment of many who voted for Brexit, and feel betrayed by the Government’s utter failure to control immigration.
Moreover, many people – and not just Tories – will have been impressed by Farage’s depiction of Britain as a high-tax, crime-ridden, generally dysfunctional country.
And yet there is a fatal flaw in the strategy of Reform’s new leader. I’ve little doubt that under his direction his party will make things even more difficult for the Tories, though it may win few, or even no, seats because our first-past-the-post system discriminates against smaller parties.
Even so, Reform – the more so under new, dynamic leadership – is bound to turn up the heat on the Tory party, which is exactly what Nigel Farage wants.
His dramatic announcement yesterday afternoon that he will fight the constituency of Clacton is nothing less than an attempt to change the face of British politics, and cement his place in history
And what will be the probable consequence? An even bigger Labour majority than would have otherwise been the case – and therefore the unravelling of Farage’s life’s work.
Sir Keir Starmer is the man who tried to cancel Brexit by engineering a second referendum. It is true that in his new incarnation of moderation he has ruled out rejoining the European Union, or even the bloc’s single market and customs union, but there’s no doubt that in his heart he remains passionately pro-EU.
With a huge majority – which Mr Farage not only wants him to have but will help him to achieve – it is certain that the Labour leader will make overtures to Brussels, which it will be eager to entertain.
Of course Sir Keir will deny this during the campaign. He doesn’t want to reopen the contentious issue of EU membership now, realising that his party’s obstructive attitude towards Brexit was the major factor in its electoral humiliation in 2019.
But once he is triumphantly installed in No 10 – with a majority of hundreds if Nigel Farage gets his way and the polls are to be believed – it’s certain that Sir Keir will initiate the slow process of reintegrating this country into the European Union.
There have been suggestions that, once in government, Labour will sign an agreement with the EU that would see Britain align with Brussels’s rules on food and agricultural products. The justification, unexceptionable in itself, would be to reduce the number of border checks. But it would mark a first step in signing up once more to EU rules.
In other words, by helping to orchestrate what could well be a Labour landslide, Reform could undo everything that Nigel Farage has striven for. The slow march back to Brussels is about to begin.
Perhaps he will play a major role in the reshaping of the Right, though he needs first to win Clacton. In 2014, Ukip – the precursor of the Brexit Party and of Reform – gained its first elected MP there, with Douglas Carswell taking the seat by a majority of 12,404 votes.
Amid the ruins on July 4, others will also be jostling to reshape the Right, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch among them – assuming they don’t lose their seats. Will they be the equal of Nigel Farage? Whoever emerges must be able to show that Brexit still means something important.
Don’t rule out a return by Boris Johnson, though he will need first to find a seat in a climate that may not be at all favourable to Tories, at least for a year or two until voters become disenchanted with Labour, which they surely will.
How Tory MPs must be kicking themselves, and rightly so. Boris’s removal presaged the disintegration of the Conservative Party.
Whatever his mistakes – not least presiding over record levels of immigration, despite the promises of Brexit – his Tory party was relatively narrowly behind Labour in the polls when Rishi and others plunged in the knife. Now there is a gulf between the parties that looks unbridgeable.
What a mess this is! A series of errors and stupidities has led to the untested, inscrutable Sir Keir Starmer being on the verge of power, possibly facing a small and enfeebled Tory opposition.
The bitterest pill is the prospect of Sir Keir steering us back into the maw of Brussels. What use will Nigel Farage’s reshaping of the Right be to anyone then?
I admire him greatly for what he has done. He has been a man of destiny. But his destiny may now be to help destroy all that he has achieved.
Despite the Tories’ intermittent idiocies and abiding passion for destroying one another, they, not Nigel Farage, are our soundest bet. Let’s hope against hope that they can rouse themselves at the 11th hour, and show some grit and conviction at last.
The message should be simple enough. A vote for Farage and Reform is a vote for Starmer – and a vote, in the end, for Brussels.