Despite election sweep, Nigel Farage is not as Teflon as he thinks: Martin Ivens

Key topics:Reform UK surge reshapes UK politics; Labour loses key strongholdsFarage’s nationalist Reform challenges both Labour and ConservativesStarmer’s scandals and weak approval boost Farage’s anti-establishment appeal.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Martin Ivens.The battle last week between the cheeky life-chancer Nigel Farage and the sober former state prosecutor Keir Starmer was never going to be much of a contest.Working-class and lower middle-class British voters turned out in force for Farage’s hard-right Reform UK. In local and regional elections that were treated by politicians and public alike as a midterm referendum on the government, some abandoned the prime minister’s Labour party, some came to Reform from the Conservatives, others who seldom vote made their protest against the status quo. In Wales, Reform pushed Labour into third place in its historic heartland, with the nationalist Plaid Cymru out in front. In left-leaning Scotland, where the Faragists had struggled to make a mark, the party equaled Scottish Labour in seats, both behind the Scottish National Party..Read more:.FT: Farage shakes up UK politics as Reform topples Tory and Labour strongholds.Reform UK often produces an allergic reaction from detractors who believe it the home of anti-foreigner Little Englanders bearing grudges. Undeniably it is now part of the warp and weft of politics across the United Kingdom — a nationalist party with nationwide reach. Farage greeted his large wins in England with the boast that No. 10 was in his sights. On his previous trajectory from troublemaker to the most consequential figure in British politics as the chief Brexit protagonist, it would be unwise to underestimate this ambition. Farage’s unlikely helper lately has been his Labour adversary and polar opposite. Starmer’s self-righteous performance in recent weeks, as he protested his innocence amid a welter of scandals, notably the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, has become a turn-off. “Vote Reform. Get Starmer Out,” was such a successful campaign slogan that Farage repeatedly mentioned the PM’s name in all his post-election press conferences. In some ways history repeated itself when Farage triumphed on Thursday, just with a different cast. In the 2019 general election — while promising to “get Brexit done” — another scapegrace, the Tory Boris Johnson, trounced a dour Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. The sons of charismatic, unreliable fathers, Farage and Johnson also have in common that they were privately educated in the affluent southeast of England. But both men possess a common touch that their opponents so conspicuously lack. Farage and Johnson, friends of billionaires and often their beneficiaries, speak fluent anti-elitism too. Farage’s achievement as a disrupter is in fact greater than Johnson’s. He created Reform out of nothing. In a few short years of shifting from Brexit activist to insurgent politician his new party has usurped Labour’s place across much of the post-industrial north of England, the Midlands and impoverished coastal towns. Departing the European Union began the great divorce. These election results showed the breakdown of old loyalties is almost complete. Labour, founded 125 years ago to give the working classes direct representation in Parliament, now largely appeals to public-sector workers and middle-aged, middle-class graduates. Can Farage now crown his extraordinary political career by taking the place of the Tories on the right with a good shot at becoming prime minister? And just what can the voters expect?Essentially Reform’s leader is a nationalist whose youthful inspiration was Enoch Powell, a Tory intellectual who caused outrage in the 1960s by whipping up racial prejudice in a bid to seize his party’s leadership. Farage lacks Powell’s ideological consistency — his populist economics shift from support for free markets to state intervention in industry — but unlike his mentor he tries to be careful to distance himself from overt racism. Powell also loathed the US as the gravedigger of his beloved British Empire. Farage admires the US and counts President Donald Trump as a friend.The Reform leader’s party labels may have changed, but the product is always the same. He opposed UK membership of the EU for decades. The electoral threat posed by his former outfit UKIP to the Tories persuaded Prime Minister David Cameron to call the European referendum. Farage always takes the hardest of lines on immigration.His trick is to make his eventual victory seem inevitable: ”What is very clear to me is that our voters will stick with us now all the way through. They are not lending their vote to Reform.” If last week had been a parliamentary election, Reform would have won 284 seats, 42 short of a majority, with Labour reduced from more than 400 to 110. The Tories would have won 96 seats, paving the way for a coalition dominated by Farage. But the general election is not in the bag. Local votes are commonly used as protests and Farage is not as Teflon as he thinks. His early cheerleading for Trump’s war against Iran, overwhelmingly unpopular in the UK, cost him more than a couple of points in the opinion polls and exposed a credibility gap in his party’s program. As yet, the Reform leader has appointed no one to a foreign affairs or defense brief. In a time of multiple international crises, this could become a serious weakness..Read more:.RW Johnson: The Farage Charge in the UK adding to Labour’s travails.The cost of living crisis and stagnant economic growth since the financial recession has soured the electorate. Traditional parties haven’t found any remedy. But will the voters trust the mercurial Farage with their finances? His Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick, a former Tory leadership contender, is nobody’s fool. Still, popular anger with the status quo was the theme of Reform’s campaign, not making the sums add up.So let’s see how Reform fare when they get to run some of the cities and counties they have just won. Since last year local taxes in nine Reform-run councils have gone up, not down as promised.Finally there is the Farage factor. As he approaches No. 10, the center-left and left bloc of voters will vote tactically to stop him. His party’s vote share was down to 26% from 30% in local elections last year. In some bellwether seats that tend to decide general election results such as Swindon and Harlow, Labour and the Tories hung on grimly. Reform’s leader has a faithful following but his approval ratings at negative 39 points is the lowest of any political leader after Starmer. He excites real hatred. And although Labour’s leader can’t change his spots, his party can change their chief. Johnson beat Corbyn comprehensively in middle Britain because he was so obviously the lesser of two evils. Matched against a credible Labour prime minister and a vigorous Tory leader, Farage’s victory does not seem inevitable at all. .Read more:.Starmer shackled by Labour’s Brownite legacy: Martin Ivens.But amid the collapse of the old centre left and Reform’s displacing much of the Conservatives’ appeal on the right, it doesn’t look out of the question either. The more “Stop Reform” becomes a rallying cry for parties who fear it, the wider the grin on its leader’s face..© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Despite election sweep, Nigel Farage is not as Teflon as he thinks: Martin Ivens

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