So it’s finally happened. There are in fact three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and Nigel Farage announcing he’s standing for election. And not only is Farage standing to be MP for Clacton, he’s also replaced Richard Tice as the leader of Reform UK.
The first thing I’d like to say, specifically to the people of Clacton, is sorry. I am deeply sorry that the stock of politicians in this country is so catastrophically dire that one of your choices on your ballot paper this year will be Nigel Farage.
Have you watched Farage’s ‘emergency election announcement’? When you’ve finished reading this, watch it. It is scary.
All I can say is that Nigel Farage morphed into Donald Trump while making that speech – who himself has not been covered in glory this week after being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Farage said: ‘What I intend to lead is a political revolt. Yes, a revolt. A turning of our backs on the political status quo’.
We’ve seen this before when Trump incited the Capitol riots on 6 January 2021. Over 2,000 people stormed Congress that day – the building of law-makers in the United States. The irrevocable damage that Trump inflicted on democracy on that single day alone is immeasurable.
Is that what Farage wants to replicate in the UK? A storm on Westminster? It is extremely dangerous incendiary political language to be talking about a ‘revolt’. We’ve all seen how some people can make this persuasive metaphor into a hellish reality – and it seems Farage is happy to lightly entertain the same with deliberately blasé remarks such as this.
And he has the cheek to say that Reform don’t see politics ‘as a game’, presumably unlike the Conservatives and Labour. Is that so? Because don’t forget that Farage went on I’m A Celebrity purely as a street-cred stunt to improve his popularity and tee up this very announcement. Yes, Matt Hancock did it too – but the Conservative Party suspended him as a result and it ended his entire political career. Neither is in the right, but Reform are more in the wrong for allowing some unsubstantiated ‘celebrity’ to infiltrate their politics.
Farage endorsed now-former Reform leader Richard Tice’s comment that this election was the ‘immigration election’. Seconds later, he then pulls the ‘political revolt’ stunt, claiming nothing in this country works anymore because we have to build houses for immigrants and give up hospital appointments for them.
So let’s be clear: this election is not the immigration election at all. It’s the public services election, the current failure of which is being blamed solely on immigration by the apparent modern-day Enoch Powell.
It’s no secret that I have been heavily critical of illegal immigration in previous articles – and that hasn’t changed. But to claim that the entire failure of this country’s public services is down to immigration is laughable. Surely we all know by now that Farage is a one-trick pony, and gunning down immigration is all he’s got. He’s a prime anti-politician – he knows what he doesn’t like, but he has nothing positive to contribute. Much like that annoying member of any group project who spends the whole time dissing every idea under the sun without suggesting any reasonable alternatives.
Nigel Farage is the reason that this country even had to take a vote on Brexit in 2016. He began stirring the pot as soon as he was elected UKIP leader in 2006 – banging on about the ineptitude of Brussels and the French border force from day one. One thing you cannot deny is that Farage knows how to run a campaign on fear. And the frightening pictures he paints of immigrants overrunning Britain have taken a firm hold of our politics for almost two decades.
The major parties could not ignore Farage, which is why immigration has become a centrepiece of the UK political agenda. That’s the real reason why our public services are starved of investment and why, in Farage’s words, ‘nothing in this country works anymore’. It’s because he’s forced an anti-immigration agenda which means we spend all our time wondering how to kick people out, forgetting that we have over 60 million people to take care of.
And don’t believe for one second that Nigel Farage is going to change any of it. In Reform’s landmark conference five months ago, they pledged to cut government spending by £50 billion. So don’t be fooled by Farage’s apparent concern for public services – because they will be completely obliterated under Reform.
I say ‘under Reform’ as if they’re actually a contending party. How silly of me. Because they won’t get anywhere near the keys of Number 10. In fact, they’ll be lucky to even touch the plush leather of a single seat in the House of Commons.
No, Reform will be the Green Party of the right. Lots of people seem to speak in alignment with their cause but, when push comes to shove, their absolute best result is to secure one seat in Parliament. And, if anybody, that’ll be Farage for Clacton – purely because it’s a pro-Brexit area, so Mr Brexit himself will be treated like royalty.
So maybe Nigel Farage will finally win himself a seat in Parliament. But wouldn’t it be just like big ol’ Nige to fight all his life to get into Westminster and then incite a political revolt to destroy the place? If there’s one thing we’ve learnt, you can never say never with Farage.
Image: Gage Skidmore
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