Can the Tories survive Nigel Farage?

Nigel Farage had given less than a day’s notice, yet hundreds stood ready to welcome him on Tuesday morning on the pier of Clacton-on-Sea. There was a woman with Union Jack sunglasses and a man wearing an ‘I love gas and oil’ T-shirt. More stood on the bridge above, peering down. Everyone wanted to catch sight of their would-be MP. ‘I’m here to blow him a kiss and say thank you, thank you Nigel,’ explains Yvonne, in her sixties. ‘He 100 per cent has my vote.’ This is a Tory seat now but it was once a Ukip seat and these voters may well send Farage to parliament as the new leader of Reform UK.

Farage once said that the drawback to standing for parliament was that he did not want ‘to spend every Friday for the next five years in Clacton’. That didn’t seem to matter to the crowd as he gave his rabble-rousing speech. ‘What do I have to offer you?’ he asked. ‘Well, I can promise that I do know one thing: that a woman can’t have a penis. You won’t get any woke PC nonsense from me because I’ve always told it as it is!’ Huge applause followed. Then came his plea: ‘Send me to parliament to be a bloody nuisance!’

Farage’s last-minute decision to stand, despite previously saying that he wouldn’t, is already proving a nuisance to Tory strategists. They pushed for an early election in the hope that Farage would not have time to take over as Reform UK leader. One part of the July election gamble appeared to pay off: Farage initially said the date had caught him off guard and that his focus would be on the United States.