This week in Brexitland, February 2, 2023

How and when will Nigel Farage return to British politics? And what that will mean for the Conservative Party and Brexit?

I should start this off by saying I obviously have no idea what Nigel Farage is actually thinking about doing right now. I have never met the man. I did once find myself in a public toilet at the same time as him, but we traded neither words nor a look in each other’s direction (nor, to clarify for some of you with twisted imaginations, any physical contact whatsoever). In short, I don’t know Nigel Farage, beyond what I’ve seen on television.

However, I can tell you what would be in his best strategic political interests to do right now. And given this is Farage’s primary skill, it’s not beyond considering that some of the things I’m about to talk about have flashed across his mind already.

The Tories are currently in a death spiral. Sunak hasn’t been able to raise the party’s poll ratings all that much above the depths of the Truss days. They seem unable to take any action to lift themselves out of the rut they find themselves in. In fact, they seem to continually make the same mistakes they’ve been making over the past year or so, over and over again, unable to break out of the negative feedback loop into which they have landed.

The polls are terrible for the Tories - and yet all of the benefit of this is accruing to Labour. The Lib Dems are doing fairly poorly still, nationally at least, while Reform have seen a little burst here and there, but nothing substantial. However, if Farage returned to the leadership of Reform, that would be a different story. He could not only cause the Conservative party some massive worries, he could tip the next election from being one that sees a sizeable Tory loss to an event that wipes them out in an existential way.

Nigel Farage must be aware of this.

There is a large, Farage sized space in British politics at present. The anti-vax, anti-immigration, disappointed by Brexit “not being fully taken advantage of” hard right bunch that hate this government for not being right-wing enough are filled with people who see Nigel Farage as a hero. The moment seems tailor-made for him to storm back into the limelight.

Given he has a massive gap to drive into here, why then hasn’t Farage made a return to frontline politics in the form of taking over as leader of the Reform Party? Let’s look at the possibilities - and from there, I’ll tell you what I think is the most likely move that Farage will make before the next general election and further, what that might mean for wider British politics and indeed, the future of Brexit.

One issue is that Reform already has a leader in Richard Tice. It’s possible that he could act as a block and not allow Farage to take control of the party again. I don’t know, this sounds unlikely to me. Farage is hundreds of times more beloved by the target audience for Reform than Tice, and Tice must know that. Richard could stand his ground and then Farage could then just easily build a new party that would take every last vote from Reform, which again, Tice must surely be aware of. Anyhow, in conclusion, I don’t think this is a serious barrier to Farage re-entering politics in a real way.

Another thing Farage could be worried about is “endangering Brexit”. This would be the concern that by running across all 650 constituencies in the UK (or at least, in every English constituency), he would be greatly helping Labour win and thus possibly paving the way for Brexit to be finally “betrayed”.

Farage must know it’s a doomed project by now anyhow. In fact, it would be all the better for him personally for portions of Brexit to be reversed so he can claim the project was “stabbed in the back” by Remainers and Remainers in Leaver clothing. He can be like one of those Stalinists from the 90s who still went on about how the Soviet Union would have been a rip roaring success if only it hadn’t been for all the Trots and traitors. So, no, I don’t think that’s what is stopping him either.

Then there’s Boris. Sunak is perfect for Farage to go up against - disliked by Leavers, a turgid public personality with little charisma. Johnson, however, is Farage’s true nemesis. He briefly tried fighting against the Johnson cult of personality in 2019 and 2020, only to discover it was too huge for him to overcome. He had to row in behind BJ and indeed, when the moment of truth came with Johnson’s poor trade deal with the EU, Farage got behind Johnson, declaring “the war is over”.

Farage is surely worried about a scenario in which he makes a grand re-entry into British politics, only for Johnson to become PM again and steal all of his thunder when the hard right gravitate away from him and back to Boris.

I think it’s the Boris Johnson question that is most likely stopping Farage from making a comeback, at least for the time being. I think he will wait until 2024 to make any public move. If Sunak is still PM at that point, it’s very likely he will remain so into the general election. Farage can then re-launch Reform with himself at the helm in spring 2024, which gives him enough time to build up momentum again to take into the general election but also not so much time to wait that the people he would be targeting get sick of him.

I would be surprised if Nigel Farage didn’t return to frontline politics if Sunak is still PM come spring 2024; I would be shocked if he did so if Boris Johnson was PM again at that time (I can’t believe this is even a remote possibility, but welcome to the times in which we live). However, as I said at the top, I don’t know Nigel Farage personally and can’t tell you what he’s thinking. Perhaps he simply wouldn’t want to do any of this for his own personal reasons.

He would be chucking in a golden opportunity if he didn’t jump in spring 2024, however - the chance to finally destroy a Conservative party he has clearly long loathed, all in order to be the leader of a new right-wing movement that could go up another notch with him at the helm. In the aftermath of a Labour 2024 election victory, Farage could become so potent a political force that the Tories at long last accept him into the fold and he could conceivably become the leader of the opposition. If any of this sounds fanciful to you, remember how underestimated Farage has been in the past.

Brexit is dying but it isn’t going to go quietly. Its death throes will likely be protracted and ugly. Farage, as leader of either Reform or later on the Conservative party, could give it one last kick of the can before demographics and basic reality destroy Brexit for good. One thing is for sure: without Farage to lead it, the hard right populist fad will die in Britain without one last hoorah.

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