Farage at 60: there’s more to come

Were I to tell you that the most significant political figure of his age celebrates a landmark birthday this week, you’d probably work out that I could not be referring to Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer.

There would be an argument for suspecting I might be talking about Boris Johnson, given that he was born in 1964 and presided over the departure of the UK from the EU. But no, his 60th birthday does not fall until June – beaten to it by more than two months by Nigel Farage, who chalks up the big six-o on Wednesday.

Though we could say that Brexit is a child with two fathers, there really can be no contest as to which was in loco parentis from the earliest days. As the primal force behind Ukip, Farage campaigned remorselessly and often brilliantly for two decades to take Britain out of the nascent European superstate. With Johnson such a commitment was only forthcoming after a game of eeny-meeny-miny-moe between two competing columns he had written at the start of the referendum campaign.

And it was Farage who rescued the project from the clutches of the ‘rotten’ parliament of 2017-19, that had blocked enactment and was on the verge of imposing a second referendum. By creating the pop-up Brexit party, winning the 2019 European elections and crushing the Tory vote share below ten per cent, he blew away Theresa May and cleared the way for Johnson to carry the thing over the line.

As a final favour to the blond bombshell, he also stood down Brexit party candidates against sitting Tories at the 2019 general election, allowing Johnson to switch resources into target seats. What ensued was far from perfect from a Leaver perspective but undoubtedly a ‘harder’ Brexit than had looked on the cards under May, who had also threatened us with ‘no Brexit at all’.

Were the Conservatives a competent bunch of political thinkers, then that would have been that almost half a decade ago. Bestowing the peerage on Farage that he richly deserved and seeking to absorb him back into a Tory tribe from which he had departed in ire post the Maastricht Treaty, would surely have defanged him. But no, they didn’t want to give him that.

So now we approach the 2024 general election with Farage’s name back on everyone’s lips – an incantation akin to Mrs Moore in A Passage To India: is he gone or will he return to drive events once more?

Spooked Tory MPs cling for comfort to his apparently definitive words when announcing his retirement from frontline politics three years ago: ‘Party politics, campaigning, being involved in elections – that is now over for me.’

But he’s not being so unequivocal these days and in any case has previously shown a Frank Sinatra-esque predilection for comebacks. Going on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… – on which he did well and finished third – was not, as some suggested, a mere money-making exercise. The primary motivation was to engage with a younger audience that he had already made inroads into via his presence on TikTok.

Those who spend most time with him say he is more healthy than for many years, having reduced his once legendary alcohol intake and incorporated regular exercise into his routine. His reach has been further extended and communication skills honed via his successful four-nights-a-week show on GB News. 

As someone who took Nick Clegg to the cleaners in two televised TV debates in 2014, it would be odd were he not looking at the low-grade sparring of Sunak and Starmer at PMQs and fancying his chances of landing some big punches.

Any sailor setting out to sea needs two big factors in his favour – a seaworthy vessel and favourable weather conditions. Reform UK is looking much more like the former than it did a couple of years ago, having been skippered to 12 per cent in the polls by Farage’s friend Richard Tice. And really, the outlook could hardly be better given the extent of Sunak’s alienation of voters on his right flank – principally over immigration policies – and Starmer’s inability to connect with them. That’s wind in the sails straight away.

People around Farage say he still has not made his mind up between his main options for autumn 2024: playing a lucrative role as Donald Trump’s warm-up man in the greatest political show on earth or leading the Reform party into what might just be the biggest insurgency seen in his lifetime.

Back in 2014 when Clegg issued his challenge to take part in TV debates, I was Ukip’s communication director and conscious we were already well ahead in polling for the European elections. So I told Farage: ‘You don’t have to do this.’ He grinned wolfishly and replied: ‘Well, I do really.’

So happy 60th to Nigel Farage. More is to come.