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Nigel Farage is a quitter not a fighter – his latest political sideshow makes that clear

In Hartlepool, the Brexit Party leader announces the world’s first one-man alliance, proof that the only person Nigel Farage does favours for is Nigel Farage

Tom Peck
Political Sketch Writer
Monday 11 November 2019 20:23 GMT
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General Election: Nigel Farage says Brexit Party will not contest seats won by Conservatives in 2017

The trouble with a Nigel Farage campaign tour is that, like the Spice Girls, Nigel Farage struggles to get all five Nigels to take part.

Cheeky, Belligerent, Pissed and Nationalist will do absolutely anything if the money’s right, but Subdued Nigel, the one that just pouts and moans and thinks the world owes him a living is extremely unreliable, so fair play to the management team for making sure he not only turned up to the critical Hartlepool gig but frankly stole the show.

And what a relief that he did. This, it turned out, was the concert at which the daring new material was finally going to be debuted, and the general themes of humiliation, capitulation and retreat would have been far out of the tonal range of all the rest of the group.

Of course, that’s not quite how he badged it. This was Nigel Farage finally announcing his “alliance” with the Conservative Party, but for the minor detail that it was an alliance only he had signed up to.

After years of threats and intimidation, what Nigel Farage had concluded was that the best way to put the pressure on the Tories, to make sure they deliver the “real” Brexit neither they nor he have ever actually promised but which he has now unilaterally decided he wants, is, yes, that’s right, to not contest them in a single seat, anywhere in the country.

Boris Johnson’s deal is still “not Brexit”, he made that clear, but he then made clear the only way to deliver this non-Brexit, which he doesn’t want, is to give it an absolutely free run come polling day.

What on earth would his supporters make of this? Well, it turns out, actually, “real” Brexit is still on offer, because Boris Johnson released a video late on Sunday night, saying he definitely wouldn’t extend the transition period beyond the end of 2020, so we’ll have real Brexit then, instead.

This really was the message. Everything will be fine because Boris Johnson made me a promise.

We are reminded of the bit in Dumb and Dumber, where the gangsters finally recover the briefcase, only to find the millions of dollars in cash replaced with handwritten IoUs.

The nation’s psephologists will spend long hours trying to work out What This Means but the real meaning has been clear for more than a week. Nigel Farage won’t stand against any Tories, but will stand against Labour MPs, and hope to make inroads in their northern, Brexit-loving but Tory-loathing heartlands.

Your entry level analysis is that in places like Stoke, the Brexit Party might nick enough Brexiteer votes from the Labour Party to either let the Tories crawl to victory under the gap in the door, or possibly even nick enough to win themselves.

But if there were any real chance of victory, anywhere, the chances of Nigel Farage not standing there are precisely zero.

Even in Hartlepool, where the above dynamic was at its most theoretically fruitful, there is already the sense that the Brexit Party has done a deal with the Tories, and so is already toxic by association. Once upon a time, a chap called Peter Mandelson won this seat and went on a hyper-extended rant at three am about being “a fighter not a quitter”.

Farage likes to think he is the same, except he has done the opposite.

You also don’t need to have spend long decades staring at spreadsheets and swingometers to know that the only person Nigel Farage does favours for is Nigel Farage.

There are still four and a half weeks of this tour to go. If Nigel Farage is coming to your town, do bear in mind that Subdued might just be the only one that turns up.

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