This week in Brexitland, June 6, 2024

Why Farage running in Clacton is the latest milestone on the road to the UK rejoining the EU

For everything that had gone disastrously wrong for the Tory campaign up until the start of this week, at least Camp Sunak could bank one seeming victory: Farage said he wouldn’t stand. This seemed to vindicate the timing of the election in one way at least - had it been called later, perhaps Farage might have tried it on. Given the danger he poses to the Conservatives, this was big.

Except, then Farage changed his mind and announced he was standing in Clacton. The media frenzy around this has been predictably huge. Say what you want about Nigel Farage - and I disagree with him on almost everything - he’s good at politics in a way that almost no other politician is in Britain at the moment. He’s box office. In what is settling into being a boring campaign, Farage’s entrance was jumped upon by the political media like a starving dog onto a bone.

What does it actually mean though? Is Farage joining the race just noise and won’t make much difference to anything in the end? I think it’s a big deal and will change things, now and in the future. In fact, its significance is massive, whether Farage wins in Clacton or not.

The first two things to watch for: one, what happens to the polls taken after the Farage announcement. This should start to filter through in full effect this weekend. We’ve already had one YouGov poll putting Reform within two points of the Tories. If we get one that puts Reform ahead of the Conservatives, watch all hell break loose.

The other is the Tory knee-jerk reaction. Thus far, Sunak hasn’t fallen into the trap of pushing the Tory policy agenda even further in the direction of the GB News/Reform crowd. Again, thus far. If the polls move towards Reform over this weekend in an undeniable way, panic might result in the misapprehension that if only they become right-wing enough, the Tories can at least ward off disaster. Sunak might make a disastrous announcement on the ECHR, for instance.

However, what’s most interesting about Farage’s run at Clacton is what it says about Brexit and its future. It is clear by now that Brexit has eaten the Conservative party in a way that seems inevitable in retrospect - and that Brexit is now eating itself as well. Farage is the latest, key phase in that process - and it’s a big one in the timeline of Brexit falling apart. For a start, it demonstrates the danger Brexit poses to any government that clings to it. Once you are in power and you’re in charge of making Brexit work, when it doesn’t, you’re the ones held responsible. The Remainers can say that you were misguided in sticking to Brexit when it was never going to work, while the Brexiters can say you didn’t do it correctly and have screwed up - even worse, you have “betrayed Brexit”.

Labour will have to look at this and take heed. Once they have a majority, how long do they want to stand behind something that they know will ultimately fail? They can look at what is about to happen to Sunak as a stark warning on that front.

Further, Farage running as an MP will further divide the right, leading to all sorts of possibilities for rejoining the EU to become a big part of the national political debate once again. I know this is premature and perhaps even fanciful, but if the Lib Dems became the official opposition, that puts in both government and opposition two parties who ultimate think we should rejoin the EU, deep down at least. All while a divided right squabbles for another half a decade (or a decade?) in irrelevance.

Some will say that Farage running is straight up bad for rejoiners because of the politics he represents. I don’t think so. Time will tell, but I think Farage running in Clacton could be seen in thirty years’ time as one of the milestones on the road to the UK rejoining the European Union.

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