It’s the culmination of a remarkable journey for the Reform UK leader. Twenty years ago, Ukip’s first big surge ended in turmoil when its celebrity recruit and would-be leader, Robert Kilroy Silk, horrified the rest of the party’s higher-ups by saying their mission should be to “kill the Conservative Party”.
Obviously Reform UK’s leader has become more fond of orange-faced former television stars in the decades since Kilroy-Silk was defenestrated. But that isn’t all that has changed.
For months, Reform UK has punched Starmer’s bruise over the winter fuel allowance cuts. No sooner did the Prime Minister tell his worried MPs last week that the Government will water down the policy in the coming months, then Farage went one further, pledging to restore the benefit in full.
This is a story former premiers Theresa May and Lord Cameron will recognise. Government is a sluggish galleon, becalmed by collective responsibility, fiscal rules, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the difficulty of making the books add up – whereas Farage excels at the role of the nippy privateer, outmanoeuvring his opponents with panache. Fire a broadside, and to hell with the balance sheet, because that isn’t his problem.
What’s new is seeing Reform do to Labour from the Left what it and its predecessor parties previously did to the Conservatives from the right-way.
As Gawain Towler, for many years Farage’s closest adviser, wrote (in a tribute to journalist and former Ukip MEP Patrick O’Flynn, who died last week), Reform’s leader has been on a journey when it comes to issues like the NHS where his previous positions might have limited his appeal in Labour heartlands.
Even now, Starmer’s strategy is said to promote Farage as his “real opponent” – presumably on the basis that doing so deepens Tory suffering while offering Labour someone to rally its voters against.
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If you’re part of The Left (with capital letters and the full ideological matching kit), then it might seem baffling that a party of “The Right” could have mass appeal among Labour’s traditional, multi-generational core vote. The theory of intersectionality surely means that supporting higher benefits for those in poverty also means welcoming asylum seekers arriving on small boats and supporting trans self-ID.
This is no secret. Vote Leave intentionally chose red as its colour, spoke of controlling our borders and funding the NHS, and won over many millions of Labour voters. Corbynism was routed by Boris Johnson on similar territory, promising to fund new hospitals, hire more police officers and leave the EU.
Farage intends to doom each of the main parties by simply offering the electorate a platform which gives them what they like on both fronts. Starmer wanted him as his “real opponent”; perhaps he should have been careful what he wished for.
Mark Wallace is chief executive of Total Politics Group
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