Could Nigel Farage be preparing another Brexit comeback?

A Tory split could open the door for another attempt at frontline politics, says Sean O’Grady

(AFP/Getty)

Brexit has “failed” says Nigel Farage, former leader of Ukip and the Brexit Party and leading force in the Leave movement. He concedes the economy hasn’t benefitted and that immigration has not fallen as he and many Leave voters expected during the 2016 referendum. His admission leaves the door open to a political comeback.

Is Farage saying the UK should have stayed in the EU?

Not really. He agrees Britain has not “benefitted from Brexit economically”, but blames government policy for deterring businesses from investing here.

He rejects any notion that Brexit voters are disillusioned. “I don’t think that for a moment. But what I do think is we haven’t actually benefitted from Brexit economically.” Opportunities of Brexit haven’t been seized as they could or should have been, he believes. “What Brexit has proved, I’m afraid, is that our politicians are about as useless as the commissioners in Brussels were … we’ve mismanaged this totally, and if you look at simple things … such as takeovers, such as corporation tax, we are driving business away from our country … arguably, now we’re back in control, we’re regulating our own businesses even more than they were as EU members. Brexit has failed.”

Where Farage differs from some Conservative Eurosceptics loyal to the government, and indeed Rishi Sunak, is that they think that the sunlit uplands of Brexit can still be reached under the current Brexit deal while he wants more radical solutions. Farage saw Brexit as a necessary condition to complete the Thatcher revolution, to create a low tax, small state, light regulation economy, free from the Brussels rulebook but with an added dose of protectionism. What’s lacking is a modern Tory party brave enough to take the risks implied in such an experiment; ambitious Tories such as Suella Braverman (self-styled Brexit “Spartan”), and Kemi Badenoch make no secret that they’d be willing to for that role – as might Farage himself in some future political realignment.

This strain of extreme Euroscepticism sometimes gets tangled up in absurd conspiracy theories about the civil service “blob” or the “woke establishment” plotting to make Brexit a flop. Such talking points cropped up a lot during Liz Truss’ short premiership. The idea that such a neo-Thatcherite Brexit project has already been attempted and abandoned in the form of the Truss-Kwarteng project seems not to occur to them. Perhaps reality is the reason Brexit hasn’t turned out the way Farage promised.

What does he want instead?

It’s surprisingly hard to say beyond a couple of obvious broad demands. First, he implies Britain should renegotiate or renounce the UK-EU Brexit free trade and withdrawal agreements, reverting if necessary to a no-deal Brexit. That would restore full sovereignty and allow much further regulatory freedoms, but it would also mean tariffs and quotas under World Trade Agreement terms and further dislocation for travellers and businesses, as well as the full loss of access to the EU Single Market. In an increasingly protectionist world, the idea of the UK going it alone is certainly bold.

The second Farage demand is that Britain leaves the European Convention of Human Rights and its court. These have nothing to do with the EU, but Farage dubs the idea “Brexit 2.0”. The main benefit is deemed to be the ability to deny asylum, together with the option of pursuing other authoritarian domestic policies, without legal challenges.

Oddly enough, the Reform UK party, of which Farage is president and majority shareholder, says little about renegotiating Brexit or going for WTO terms for trade. As so often, “the Brexit we voted for” isn’t sharply defined; it’s more of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that is always a little over the horizon and cannot ever be reached.

Didn’t Farage threaten to leave the country if Brexit was a flop?

In March 2017, not long after the referendum, he said on LBC that he would “go and live somewhere else” if Brexit proved to be a “disaster” – but that this wouldn’t happen because Brexit “isn’t going to be a disaster”. He insisted: “We’ve just managed to get ourselves in a lifeboat off the Titanic. The EU does not work.” For good measure, he told a Remain-voting caller to his show he would apologise and quit politics if – “two or three years down the line” – experts were proved right about the “economic disaster that’s going to happen” after Brexit. Farage said “there isn’t much of a tradition here”, referring to the fact that Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell never apologised for the Iraq war.

Is Farage going to stand at the next general election?

He has stood for election to the House of Commons unsuccessfully on seven occasions and once came fairly close to winning in Thanet in 2015. He declined to stand in the 2017 and 2019 contests, and has confined himself to being a media figure and leader of the group in the European parliament. A sceptic would point out he also has a lucrative contract as a GB News presenter and even an indulgent Ofcom might baulk at a politician of Farage’s stature having a television platform while standing to be an MP. In any case, he wouldn’t win.

Farage has often declared his willingness to “don khaki” and “destroy” the Conservatives if they “betray” Brexit; while he wouldn’t be in it to win it, the national profile and the ability to draw Eurosceptic, disappointed Conservative voters away from Sunak’s party would be a powerful draw even if it meant a larger Labour victory.

As things stand, Richard Tice’s Reform UK is promising to field a candidate in every British constituency, including even those held by Tory Europhobes; in 2019 Farage was prevailed upon to stand down his Brexit Party candidates in Conservative-held seats. Farage will probably keep making an issue of Brexit for many years to come.