Ukip’s new deal

Nigel Farage is relishing the chance to sow discord in Tory ranks

Nigel Farage looks round with mild disgust at the antiseptic Westminster restaurant in which we’re meant to be having lunch. The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party tilts his head back and sniffs the air theatrically, then whispers, ‘Why don’t we just go to the pub?’

We head off down the street. Farage is in a pinstripe suit with a Ukip golf umbrella under his arm. He puffs on a cigarette, his gait — half-jovial, half-military — straight out of an Ealing comedy. When we get to the pub, he greets his pint of bitter with an enthusiastic cry of ‘First of the week!’ before taking a lip-smacking gulp. One can see why the professional political classes find it so hard to take Nigel Farage seriously.

But they can’t ignore him any more. Ukip are regularly running ahead of the Liberal Democrats. They averaged 13 per cent in the wards in which they stood in the local elections and one recent poll suggested that more than a quarter of Conservatives would consider voting for them. Their support has more than doubled since the general election two years ago. Is this due to disaffected Tories coming over? ‘Across England as a whole there is no doubt that a good majority of our support has come from Tories, yes,’ he says.

Farage, who survived a plane crash on general election day, is clearly relishing his new lease of political life. He has returned to the leadership of the party, having stood down in 2009, and senses that he is on the point of vindication about the whole European project. ‘The logic of the argument which shows you why the euro didn’t work is in fact the same logical argument as to why the whole blooming thing can’t work in terms of it being a political union.’