“I left politics after twenty years in the European Parliament because I had achieved my goal: to leave the European Union”he explained to us this Sunday, June 16 in his campaign offices, installed in a former restaurant wedged above a slot machine complex. “But the Conservatives have messed up with Brexit! We weren’t asking for much. We wanted to reduce the influx of low-skilled European immigration. However, since the conservatives came to power in 2010, the population has increased by 6 million! And commerce has become more administratively complicated, which is unmanageable for small businesses. This time, we cannot accuse Brussels of being responsible, but rather the conservatives in power! The country is broken and so I came back to provide a solution. ”
The Conservatives’ Nightmare Comes True
Dressed in his Barbour jacket and green tweed cap, he is once again hitting the British roads. And after the far right made impressive inroads in France and Germany during the European elections, its return is poised to provoke a “earthquake” politics in the United Kingdom, according to the analysis published last Thursday by the polling institute YouGov. For the first time in a general election, his party overtook the Conservatives to occupy second place nationally in terms of voting intentions (19% against 18%, far behind Labor’s 37%). And this a few weeks before the legislative election on July 4. Enough to further accentuate the misery of a conservative party already in dire straits.
In the United Kingdom, the Reform UK party aims to overtake the conservatives from the right
Listening to the residents encountered on the seaside of Clacton-on-sea, the only constituency to have elected a Ukip candidate in 2015, his election to the Westminster Parliament is more than possible. “I no longer trust politicians”recognizes Steve. “The Conservatives had so many opportunities to do positive things with Brexit but they did nothing. Conversely, although he may not be everyone’s cup of tea, Nigel Farage is honest and people like what he says. Even though I have always voted Conservative, I will probably vote for him this time.” Not far away, Susan explains “I don’t have a problem with foreigners and the fact that they come here, but the arrival of 750,000 people a year is ridiculous. The country is not keeping up: there is a lack of housing which is causing prices to explode, and the wait to access health care is endless”.
The fertile ground of disenchantment
Nigel Farage is taking advantage of the British’s disillusionment with politics – as does Donald Trump in the United States, with whom the Englishman displayed his closeness when the American was in the White House. It was largely born from the economic difficulties caused by the ideological policy of austerity put in place by the conservatives when they came to power in 2010, then accentuated by the pandemic. His undeniable eloquence, knowledge of the issues, outspokenness and direct messages resonate with the lower middle classes, who feel forgotten by the growth and wealth of central London. Enough to provide him with what he calls “the people’s army”dedicated activists, like these forty people who came this Sunday morning at 10 a.m. to distribute the latest campaign brochures to each of the city’s residents.
This Monday, June 17, Nigel Farage took the road to Merthyr Tydfil, a town in south Wales, to present his “CONTRACT” to the British. The choice of this constituency, in the hands of Labor since the creation of the party in 1900, is part of its medium-term strategy. Nigel Farage intends to attack the Labor Party’s traditional electoral ground in view of the 2029 general election. “Labour today is a metropolitan, middle-class, and in places even upper-middle-class, party, completely disconnected from its old traditional working-class base,” he believes. “So that’s our future target.”
The European elections seen from the United Kingdom: An election!? What election?
Facing “need for reform in the country”he promised to campaign over the next five years to “freeze net immigration at zero for a few years”. To do this, exit from the European Convention on Human Rights will prove necessary. He also intends to sharply raise the tax floor to reward workers and encourage people to return to work – firmly rejecting the idea that “Unemployment recipients are lazy”. On the other hand, any unemployed person who refuses two job offers will lose their benefits. Finally, he promises “a lean public sector” and the end of the race to net zero to finance its program. To his eyes, “there is a lot more in my ideas for people at the bottom of the income scale than for anyone else.”
Right-wing populist
Even if he presents himself today as “the main opposition to Labour”, the future of his party is however not mapped out. Reform UK will struggle to win more than two seats in Parliament – former Conservative MP Lee Anderson has joined Reform and is expected to be re-elected under his new colours. “Reform has a rather low electoral ceiling”analyzes Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester. “Their populist anti-system and anti-elite positioning currently has an audience that represents 20% of the electorate, and many voters do not like their leader Nigel Farage. Second, their voters are evenly distributed across the country. They can win a small number of votes anywhere. In our first-past-the-post electoral system, this is useless because you don’t win any seats. It is therefore very unlikely that it will constitute a viable opposition party. ”
This was also the point of view of French political scientists on the National Front (now National Rally) twenty years ago. However, the rise of Reform UK and its acceptance by the greatest number of people is all the more possible as it does not want to be as extreme as the National Rally in France or the AfD in Germany. Nigel Farage never presented a program of national preference and retrograde social measures, such as limiting access to abortion. In 2014, he also refused to form a European parliamentary group with Marine Le Pen, whose party he considered too right-wing.
