Barry a year ago, Nigel Farage appeared ready to stay at the borders of British politics. “Do I want to be an MP? Do I want to spend every Friday for the next five years in Clacton?” The former Brexit’s lawmaker was music.
Shortly thereafter, he announced that he would not stay in the United Kingdom’s general elections because he was very busy helping Donald Trump win the US presidency.
But Farage, so often, the turning course. He ended up winning Clacton’s place in Essex in 2024. The stunning performance of his UK reform party in Thursday’s local elections now suggests that he can go further – ending as Britain’s leader for the opposition or even the prime minister.
No other modern British politician can match Farage’s ability to regenerate. While Trump’s other allies, such as Pierre Poilievre, Canada and Peter Dutton, Australia, have been undone with their proximity to US President Farage is booming. A heavy smoker and a three-bottle lunches, the 61-year-old is somewhat a great survivor.
Fifteen years ago this week, Farage almost died in a plane accident when the tail of a light aircraft he was using for a campaign stunt was completed in a UK Independence Party flag he was withdrawing. The accident left it in severe pain for years.
Politically, Farage survived the various internal battles and efforts of the six conservative leaders to destroy it. However, even when the cause of Ukip won the ground, the former metal trade was frustrated by “forcing them to deal with low-level people every day” and the inability to make good money.
He withdrew from party politics in several cases, including after Brexit’s referendum in 2016 (“I want my life back”) and again in 2021 when Britain officially left the EU (“it’s over … I have achieved something I decided to do: to achieve the UK independence.”)
He found new vehicles: After leaving Ukip, he set up the Brexit Party, then the reform. Recently, he withdrew a call from Elon Musk to replace her as reform leaders and won an internal battle with one of her other MPs, Rupert Lowe. He has also resisted Fallou from his support for Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Britain.
Perhaps Farage’s electoral career would have really ended if the Conservative Party deceived it after the Brexit referendum.
“The biggest political mistake made by the founding in the last 20 years was not to give him a peer in 2016,” said Gawain Towler, a former Farage adviser.
“He could not have set up Brexit’s party if he was in the Lord’s house.
Farage’s resistance owes something to national circumstances, something for his opponents and something about his gifts.
He has a ability to speak directly and with commitment, sometimes with humorous blokes. He often manages to look like he is having fun. At a rally of victory in this Friday, he joked if, given the previous lack of reform candidates, he had a woman’s problem: “I have had that problem throughout my life!”
His charisma has been particularly evident since leaving Boris Johnson’s front line politics, former Prime Minister Tory, and, to a lesser extent, Jeremy Corbyn, the former work leader, who both had the ability to attract crowds. Neither Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, nor the conservative leader we have Badenoch have the convenience of Farage in front of the camera.
“He is very, very lucky in his opponents,” Towler said. In the 2024 elections, “part of the reason we did so good is that the press were so grateful that they had something fun to write, instead of (Rishi) Sunak versus Starmer.”
Slow growth and immigration growth have expanded the audience for the radical message of Farage. His shortening from the Tory Party (from which he was a member under Margaret Thatcher) has allowed him to avoid the blame for the chaotic reality of Brexit.
A paradox of the British Party system today is that a large majority of voters say Brexit was a mistake, but the pro-Brexit reform runs the surveys.
The changing media environment also benefits for the edges. For years, Farage critics disturbed the attention paid to him by the BBC. But he now has other stores: he is a presenter of the GB News premiums, the Upsart news channel that reaches 3MN viewers a month, and has a strong presence in Tiktok, where his immigration videos and grooming gangs can accumulate more than 300,000 views.
After years of effort, Farage seems to have reconciled his political and financial ambitions. Since his election last July, he has declared £ 864,000 in external job payments – including £ 331,400 to submit to GB News and 280,500 £ to promote a company dealing with gold.
Moderate politicians have found it difficult to portray Farage as a thancherite out of touch. With the consequences of Brexit and Trump, such critics have at least new materials. Starmer has mocked Farage to travel to the US as often as “in immigration statistics”.
In the past, Farage has been alive for the dangers of international allies. He, for example, did not sit down with France’s right -wing leader Marine Le Pen in the European Parliament.
His current strategy is to disagree with Trump on foreign policy issues, such as Ukraine, but to embrace the inner agenda, which can resonate with angry British voters. “Let’s have a British Doge!” He told Friday’s rally, referring to the Musk’s cost cutting team.
His rhetoric remains divisive. He recently criticized politicians for celebrating Muslim holidays, but not Easter: “No one wants to stand up and say this is a Christian holiday. Well, I’m saying it.”
He remains one of the most unprofessional British politicians in general: 27 percent of voters have a favorable opinion on him, and 65 percent unfavorable, according to Youugov surveys.
If Thursday’s election results were extrapolated nationwide, the reform would have won about 30 percent of the vote, compared to work in 20 percent, liberal Democrats at 17, Conservatives at 15 and Greens in 11, the BBC predicted. At that level of support, the first voting system posted-post that has historically held the Farage back can push it to power.
Farage is a year younger than Starmer and a year older than Boris Johnson. If the next election were to be held in mid -2029, the last possible date, Farage would be 65.
If he wins, he would be the oldest prime minister at the entrance since Winston Churchill in 1951. He would also be a member of the Westminster Parliament for a shorter period than any prime minister in recent times. All would be very impossible – like many other parts of the Farage’s CV.
