Where is Nigel Farage?
Not in Clacton, say a few concerned constituents and unsympathetic podcast hosts. The Reform UK leader and new MP stands accused of not taking his parliamentary duties sufficiently seriously. Despite Farage’s protestations that he visits Essex “a couple of days a week” since July, critics point towards three visits to the US in two months as a sign that his attention is elsewhere.
Since his election, Farage has spoken twice in the Commons. That hasn’t stopped him from airing his views. Whether earning a cool £1.2 million a year from GB News, making him our highest-earning MP, or showing his social media elan via videos about whether the “truth is being withheld” over the Southport stabbings, he remains more comfortable with extra-curricular communication.
Hardly surprising. One suspects that Farage’s major gain from being an MP is those two little letters after his name. Being elected was an unexpected distraction from his planned American sojourn. Considering himself a man of his word, he dutifully fulfills various contractual speaking engagements. Clacton’s residents can hope that he will knuckle down once the White House race is run.
Still, before the election, Farage spoke of creating a “bridgehead in Parliament” that he would use to challenge Labour in the 90-odd seats where Reform UK silver-medalled. With over four million votes, Farage’s achievements were of no small order. Reform deprived us of dozens of seats and the votes of those who liked Boris Johnson and disliked Boris Johnson’s immigration policies.
But now? He seems strangely quiescent. Those condemning Farage for his earnings or complaining about his trips to Trumpworld are usually those who mocked him for having too little to bank at Coutts and are happy to be photographed at the Democratic National Convention. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t right to suggest Farage as an MP lacks the fireworks some expected.
Perhaps his constituency is much smaller than he is used to. Or has the reality of the relative irrelevance of leading only four other MPs got through to him? He earns more in a month from GB News than from a year in the Commons. Surely he should focus more on the former? Why debate Yvette Cooper to an audience of 12 when a TikTok skit can win the attention of millions?
Why should ConservativeHome readers be interested? For the simple reason that most of you watch his channel and want him admitted to our party. He is an extraordinary political entrepreneur, more historically significant than several recent Conservative PMs. No future Tory leader can ignore the Farage problem, even if they have committed to not letting the fox into the chicken coop.
Voters want a revolutionary. Fourteen years of Conservative government left us poorer, less safe, and reeling from an overdose of human quantitative easing. Our new Labour government arrived with little enthusiasm and has now set about pissing off pensioners, treating their donors, and pursuing self-defeating tax rises. Trust in politics is subterranean, and falling still.
He may have been around since the 1990s – only three years older than Noel Gallagher! – but Farage remains the most obvious vehicle for voter discontent. Those second places must be matched with more Labour voters having Farage as their second choice than the Tories. Four in ten Conservatives would be open to backing a party led by him. Reform’s ceiling hasn’t been reached.
Opinion polls have already put Reform in second place, with Farage ahead of Sunak and behind Starmer as a preferred PM. Labour’s honeymoon is over; things can only get worse. It is not impossible to imagine Reform and Farage in first place by Christmas. An unpopular Budget, an underwhelming new Tory leader, the ongoing decriminalisation of crime: the frog is being boiled.
Unlikely? Perhaps. Ed Miliband was ahead in the polls by the end of 2010, but he benefited from the collapse of the Liberal Democrats. The next Tory leader might hope to similarly benefit from the next Farage flare-up: more dodgy candidates, controversial statements, or a falling out between him and his motley crew. But he remains blessedly untainted by government.
As our former Editor has highlighted, revolutions have been known to overtake their progenitors. If the Government is unpopular and unequal to its task today, God knows what politics will be like in a year, let alone five. Starmer has no silver bullet for increasing growth or cutting migration. Farage will benefit from that anger. But can he control it? Will there be a Lenin to his Kerensky?
If Farage so far seems bored by Parliament or has been dismissed and damned by a media class who have always despised him, it is still far too early to be writing him off. Reform UK may not have proven the vanguard that their more excitable pre-election statements proposed. For all their obvious flaws and deficiencies, events are progressing to their advantage.
Their next great target will be next year’s local elections. By that point, the next Tory leader will have been in place for six months. If we find ourselves lagging Farage in the polls, at what point will we start to panic? Will the talk of deals, pacts, and mergers flare up again? Are we raising the salience of immigration, only to remind voters of our failures, and Farage’s spectral presence?
You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in his mouth. If the Conservative Party wants to avoid being swallowed by Farage, it has to find a way to quickly peel back his voters. Trapped between the Syclla of Reform and the Charybdis of the Lib Dems, that’s hardly a small task. Whether we can rise to it determines whether we have avoided a wipeout, or deferred it by five years.