Nigel Farage has been mysteriously absent from the election campaign trail. In the latest Mini Election interview, I spoke to the Ukip leader about his race in South Thanet and whether he any regrets about choosing a seat that was not particularly Ukip-friendly. ‘None’, he said despite the ‘vitriolic campaign against me’. Farage added, ‘Don’t forget I stood here in 2005 and I’ve worked with this branch since 1999 to try and build it up.’
Nor does Farage regret saying he would stand down as Ukip leader if he fails to win South Thanet — arguing that ‘it’s the right thing to do’ and this fight is his Becher’s Brook. ‘There’s a fence there, I’ve got to clear it. If I don’t clear it, you know, then, life will change.’
Those HIV comments
Farage created a media storm during the seven-way leaders debate about the cost of anti-retroviral drugs. I asked him if he could see why people were annoyed with that particular example:
‘Yes. But I don’t think people understand that it was the Cameron government in 2012 that changed the rules, so that people with no link to Britain could fly in, be tested, and get drugs valued over £20,000 a year. And frankly, at a time when you’re saying to people ‘I’m sorry, we can’t afford this cancer drug’, I don’t think that’s acceptable.’
I asked Farage if he had spoken to Douglas Carswell about these remarks and he said ‘yeah of course — he thinks we should have a national health service, not an international health service’ — something he said was a direct quote from Carswell.
Where is Douglas Carswell?
On the topic of Carswell, Farage also revealed that he will be taking a bigger role in Ukip’s campaign during the final few weeks. He pointed out that he’s been ‘busy working on Clacton, that’s his number one commitment, just as Mark Reckless is fighting hard in Rochester and Strood.’ But Farage said ‘you will see more of Douglas in the next three weeks’.
Tactical voting
Farage has been talking up the prospect of Ukip supporters voting tactically but said he doesn’t think Ukip supporters are ‘minded to vote very tactically’ because ‘most of them have made the transition; they’ve come to Ukip already.’ But he ‘very much hopes’ there will be tactical voting, particularly in the north of England because ‘clearly, in those seats in the north of England where we are the challenger to the Labour party, I would want Conservatives to vote tactically for us.’
And could he see many Ukip supporters tactically voting Conservative? Farage said that ‘it’s a tiddly percentage who would even consider’ going back to the Tories. He added:
‘And why would they? We’ve just seen the Conservative manifesto: the same pledges, the same promises as five years ago, all the things they’ve failed to deliver, why on earth would anybody want to go back?’
Farage’s biggest problem
Like candidates up and down the country, Farage is out on the doorstep non-stop — what is he finding to be the biggest issue? A ‘large number of people’ who are still ‘entrenched in their voting habits’, he said. But Farage doesn’t appear too worried:
‘The real key is between one in four and one in three of the pledges that we’ve had on the doorstep are from people who didn’t vote in 2010, and in some cases haven’t voted for 20 years, and in some cases have never voted in their lives. And the real challenge is getting them down to the polling station on Thursday 7th May.’
What’s next?
If Farage fails to win in South Thanet, he will resign as Ukip leader. The Sunday Times reported he might take up a gig with Fox News in New York. Farage didn’t deny this rumour, instead saying he is confident of victory:
‘Look, I don’t want to appear to be over-confident, but I think we’re going to win…I’m getting on fighting the campaign, I think we’ve got momentum behind the Ukip campaign, and I’m seeing it particularly with younger people who are quite excited about Ukip and about change.’
Farage backs Roy Jenkins
Clearly the first-past-the-post voting system doesn’t favour Ukip very much, so what system would Farage prefer to see? He backs the proposals of the Jenkins Commission to introduce the AV+ system:
‘They concluded that the AV-plus system kept the benefit that the man or woman continues to represent Guildford, and people know who the MP is, plus you have a second ballot paper whereby if you’re a high Tory living in Sheffield it’s still worth, on a raining Thursday evening, going down because at least your vote will count for something.’
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