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Opinion

In Nigel we trust! How I learned to stop worrying and love Reform UK

The local elections suggest there’s a turquoise wave heading for the UK, and commentator Adam Barnett is choosing to welcome it with open arms

As the dust settled on the local elections, white smoke from the cathedral signalled a decision had been made. Britain has chosen its next prime minister. 

“Farage eyes No 10 after victories in council polls”, the Times declared on its front page. The Daily Mail splashed with “The Reform Revolution”. The liberal Guardian ran with the no less flattering “Reform wins ‘beginning of the end of Tories’, says Farage”. 

As Hilaire Belloc wrote of another politician: “The stocks were sold, the press was squared, the middle class was quite prepared.” 

Some have expressed alarm at the rise of Reform UK. I myself was initially sceptical, having over the years described Mr Farage as a “neo-fascist bigmouth”,  a “racist demagogue”, a “pantomime horse’s arse”, and so on. 

I wrote (and wrote) that he was a spreader of racist lies, a friend to far-right movements abroad, a climate denier and shill for the fossil fuel industry, an apologist for Russian imperialism, a conspiracy theorist, and an all-around bad egg.  

But as his Reform UK party wins seats (ten councils! Two mayors! One by-election!) from an unpopular Labour government and Tory opposition, I now see I was wrong. There’s a turquoise wave heading for the UK, and it should be welcomed with open arms. 

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Here’s how I learned to stop worrying and love Reform. I’ll try to take its critics at their strongest. It may be argued that Faragism is one of the worst tricks ever pulled on the British voter; that while it styles itself as a vehicle for the working class, it’s really a movement run by and for the rich. 

Such cynics would note that nearly all of Reform’s leaders are either multi-millionaires, like deputy leader Richard Tice and chairman Zia Yusuf, or billionaires, like treasurer Nick Candy; that the party is funded by wealthy businessmen like aviation tycoon Chris Harborne; and that it receives media backing via GB News from hedge funder Sir Paul Marshall. 

Reform’s working class hero Lee Anderson is perhaps most famous for suggesting the country’s poor (those relying on food banks) simply need to learn how to budget. Farage has a side hustle selling gold bullion.

In short, critics allege that Reform’s self-styled tribunes of the people are such Brechtian caricatures of wealth and privilege, they might as well be wearing top hats and monocles. 

But this would be the politics of envy. Why begrudge people for making money? What matters is this: Reform UK in power will fight for a Britain where everyone has the right to be born into a wealthy family. 

Personally, I can’t wait to see the RUKs apply their business genius to local authority budgets, with their promise of a waste-slashing “DOGE for every county”, inspired by the great American populist Elon Musk. What wonders they will work!

Unlike mainstream politicians, Farage’s team will not be using their positions to line their own pockets. Like the social reformers of old, Reform MPs, mayors and councillors will strain every nerve and sinew to fill in potholes, collect the bins, clothe the naked and feed the hungry. Oh frabjous day! 

Another of my erstwhile complaints was that Farage’s greatest political achievements (in his own telling) are Brexit and Boris Johnson’s 2019 election win. It may be argued that both were acts of national self-harm beyond the dreams of Britain’s worst enemy. 

But if one takes the long view, I now see that all of this pain was for the higher purpose of having Nigel Farage as prime minister. Finally, the UK will have a government which will put Britain First and Make Britain Great Again. In Nigel We Trust! 

As for the Ukranians – whose national sovereignty Mr Farage has been hostile to for a decade – they will have to understand that the British people are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore. To be frank, Ukrainian national sovereignty cannot come at the expense of British bin collections. 

And as it happens, we have our own foreign invasion to deal with, thank you very much. With Reform UK in the saddle, immigration will be a thing of the past.If a former City trader in galoshes can’t stop the boats, who can? And when Farage’s promised deportations start, national pride will finally be restored, and the world will once again show Britain the respect it feels it deserves. 

Arguably it’s a shame we have to bother with a general election. All waiting would do is put off the inevitable and glorious day when Nigel Farage can address the nation from the doors of Downing Street – or perhaps from a balcony, Pope-like – and claim what is rightfully his. 

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