'Sleepless nights' - Farage looms over the deeply troubled Tories

[-:Undertaker:-]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8...f0e2c90c0755ff

'Sleepless nights' - Farage looms over the deeply troubled Tories

Collapsing in the polls, Tory MPs fear the return of the man who finished off David Cameron and Theresa May

While Westminster has been focused on the chancellors autumn statement and the aftermath of Rishi Sunaks attempted refresh of the cabinet, the real action is taking place 10,320 miles away in the Australian jungle. There the man who may, with his friends, doom the Conservative Party is undertaking a series of deeply unpleasant tasks that I wont detail here.

Nigel Farage, the former leader of Ukip and the Brexit Party, is in the jungle starring in the latest series of Im a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! His enemies have pointed out gleefully that the audience for the opening night on ITV on Sunday was, at an average of seven million, more than two million viewers down on last year.

This proves, does it not, that Farage is a ridiculous old has-been whose influence on our public life is over? To which I say: public notoriety may indeed be why the producers chose him but, in its general dismissiveness of Farage, fashionable opinion looks like coming unstuck, as it has so many times in the past 15 years or so.

There is a significant chunk of the British electorate, at least 10 per cent and possibly quite a bit higher, that is waiting to channel its sense of powerlessness and betrayal over both illegal and legal migration into rebellion. The growing understanding in the Tory tribe is that this means the electoral situation may be even worse than it looks. We are, says a normally mild-mannered Tory MP, completely stuffed.

Not only does Labour have a lead of more than 20 points in many polls, the insurgent Reform UK party, led by Farage ally Richard Tice, is hitting 10 per cent of the vote as the government struggles with immigration policy. The Conservatives are becoming increasingly vulnerable to what a Tory MP describes as a sustained stop the boats, bin the ECHR, kick the establishment campaign led by Farage when he leaves the jungle. If that happens, Reform could turn a defeat into a rout and deliver a Labour majority of 200 seats or even more.

As was the case with Ukip, the insurgent party does not need to win many or any seats at a general election. All it has to do is take sufficient votes from the Tories to wipe out majorities and cost them seats. This is what happened in one of the most recent by-elections, held in Tamworth in October. The Reform vote of 1,373 was bigger than the Labour majority of 1,316.

Replicated at scale in a general election, pollsters privately estimate that the impact of Reform being on 10 per cent nationally could cost the Tories about 100 seats. Go higher than that and it is not implausible that the Tories will be reduced from 350 to around 100 seats overall.

Professor Matthew Goodwin, an expert on populism, has already dubbed this the nightmare scenario. For the Labour Party it is a blissful dream, of course. Not all the votes Reform might win would come from the Tories. It can also take some Labour votes, as Farage has done in the past, but the opposition?s lead now is of such a size that it would still win comfortably in a general election.

One of the oddest aspects of the Farage phenomenon is that anyone pointing it out is automatically assumed to support him. I certainly dont and have clashed with him plenty of times. But it seems perverse not to acknowledge the extraordinary influence he has had.

This is the force that has already changed British history several times this century. It was the menacing presence of Farages Ukip, off to David Camerons right, that forced the prime minister to make a manifesto commitment in 2015 to hold an in-out referendum. In 2019 it was Farage who brought down Theresa May. The Brexit Party won the European parliament elections in 2019 and the Tories brought in Boris Johnson.

What is driving the process this time, and the sense that Farage is about to have another go, is extreme unhappiness among a slice of the electorate about the immigration question and the governments inability to control it.

The latest official figures for legal migration are published on Thursday and are expected to be high. Incredibly, it seems the UK will add somewhere between six and seven million people to its population in the next ten years, plus more from illegal migration. To put that into context, according to the ONS it took 33 years for the UK population to grow by 7.8 million, between 1980 and 2013.

What makes the threat to the Tories even more serious than it was in the Brexit years is that, back then, the Brexit Party and the bulk of the Tories wanted the same thing: that is, for Brexit to be delivered. Farages party liked Johnson and stood down many of its candidates once he became prime minister.

This time it is much worse. Reform and Farage hate the Tory party and want to destroy it. Their ambition is to replace it and help secure proportional representation to break the Conservatives forever.

It is difficult to see what Sunak, a decent man in Downing Street, can do about any of this in response. He can hope the polls narrow, and they might, or that Farages appeal fades. The government can carry on introducing important measures such as extending full-expensing for business, as it did in the autumn statement. That is not what Reform?s potential voters are interested in, though.

On migration Sunak is facing the same dilemma that confronts other governments bound by an outdated web of international agreements that cannot handle or deter the huge flows of people now under way. The world is complicated and the people Farage speaks for want to hear simple, loud answers to this problem. Tory MPs can hear their howl of rage coming and they are afraid.

Oh I certainly hope they have some sleepless nights.

I know a great deal of people like myself both in person and online who lent the Tories our votes in 2017 and 2019 (some for the first time ever), only to be treated appallingly with failure after failure by the Tory Party. I had hoped with the referendum we had transformed the Conservatives into a Disraeli-type populist/common sense party, but alas they were still the same old Tories and the old gang of Lord Cameron etc are fully back in control again. We were sold a pup.

As of now I am not going to be voting, but if he decides to come back from the Australian jungle and stick the knife in the useless Tories - then twist it, and insert a few more times, I will happily go out and vote just to punish them. Nothing would bring me more glee than to see them collapse to 100 seats or under - even if that means a huge Labour majority.

Thoughts?