Nigel Farage’s failure to win ‘I’m A Celeb’ has sealed his political fate

Coming an unexpectedly poor third will give ‘Mr Brexit’ pause before he attempts yet another comeback

Not that it’s at all scientific, but if what the Farage-istes were claiming on social media were true, Nigel Farage is so popular and likeable that he’d be celebrating being “King of the Jungle” by now.

He’d also be in prime position for some sort of storming political comeback. Faragemania would have overtaken gloomy Britain and, as the old extremist was being given a rapturous welcome back at Heathrow, the rest of us would be getting the bunting and the trestle tables out ready for the street parties to celebrate the return of the udder-eating hero. His final assault on power was to be supposedly at hand.

Well, Farage came third. He finished behind a boxer I’d never heard of and somebody else I’d never heard of doing something I’d never heard of. He beat the French waiter guy, but that was about the limit of his triumph. A miserable showing, in truth, of a man who helped change the course of history.

There’s nothing so “ex” as an ex-demagogue. With the enthusiastic backing of Farage’s own TV channel, GB News, blanket publicity in the tabloids, as well as the massive exposure of the programme itself and its associated social media power, Farage really ought to have run away with it.

He didn’t, and I suspect that the cheeky-chappy, Rothmans-smoking, “common-sense”, “bloke with a pint in the local” routine has worn as thin as a skink’s skin.

He didn’t charm the nation, for reasons that ought to be obvious. He got himself into some tedious arguments about Brexit and migration when he was in the jungle, which mostly reminded the rest of us that he’s actually the worst, overbearing, over-opinionated pub bore you’d ever wish not to meet. We really want and need to leave all that acrimony behind.

So Farage did not, as his fan base predicted, persuade the general population that he’s a nice, honest sort of guy, but merely reminded us that he’s the architect of Brexit and the years of national decline that followed the 2016 referendum.

Brexit has been a flop, a terrible disappointment given all the brave claims made for it. It, therefore, isn’t as popular as it was, and neither is “Mr Brexit” himself. He’s a symbol and cause of the exhausting national trauma Britain has been through in recent times, and ought to be ashamed of himself for selling a false prospectus and constantly stirring up hatred and demonising scapegoating immigrants for the country’s problems (not least the ones actually exacerbated by Brexit).

So far from being the sort of chap you might like to enjoy a drink with, then, Farage revealed himself to be as toxic and caustic as he was, say, when he revealed his incendiary “Breaking Point” anti-refugee poster in 2016, or when he claimed in a leaders’ debate at the 2015 election that: “You can come to Britain from anywhere in the world and get diagnosed with HIV and get the retroviral drugs that cost up to £25,000 per year per patient. I know there are some horrible things happening in many parts of the world, but what we need to is put the National Health Service there for British people and families who in many cases have paid into this system for decades.”

Talk about “the nasty party”.

Yet should the Tories fear Farage? Do a deal with him? Create some sort of nightmare ticket of a coalition between him and Boris Johnson to save Brexit and rescue the Right? Such phantasms are swirling working hard right circles in increasingly fevered forms, but the grim reality is that they’re lumbered with Sunak and he’s actually the best they’ve got. Farage is no asset to anyone, in the jungle or outside it.

Now, it’s undeniable that Farage and his present political vehicle, Reform UK, have a following – but it’s perhaps exaggerated and, in any case, irrelevant. They’ve been on a general upward trend in the polls for some months, and in some cases are scoring about 10 per cent – around the level of the Liberal Democrats.

But it does vary, and may be exaggerated because, as the political expert Peter Kellner points out, Reform UK support depends on how the voting questions are put. With Farage, they’d have a higher profile, but how much of a bonus he’d represent over the present leader, Richard Tice – who seems to be too nice to be in with that lot – is debatable. There is a Farage “base”, but it’s not clear how it can be built on: migration and small boats aren’t the “be all and end all”, as James Cleverly points out.

As to how many votes and seats a Farage-led Reform UK would get the answer is obvious – some and none, respectively. On balance, Reform, standing in every seat in Great Britain, would indeed attract Tory voters away, just as the Brexit Party, Ukip and Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party (in 1997) did, but the net impact may not be that great.

Our first-past-the-post system will ensure they have no seats in the House of Commons, probably even on 20 per cent of the vote. (The great irony being that the only elections Farage ever won were for the European Parliament under proportional representation). Such is the size of the predicted Labour landslide that a few extra seats gifted to them by Farage’s intervention won’t matter.

The far more potent problem for the Tories is that their disillusioned voters have long ago decided to go on strike, and a sufficient number have decided to switch to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and to vote anti-Conservative tactically.

The Tories were finished long before Farage went into the jungle, and the Farage renaissance and the rise of Reform UK, such as it is, is a consequence, not a cause, of Tory decline. If the economy were growing, taxes coming down properly, the public services in good shape and inflation and interest rates low, the Tories wouldn’t need to worry about any rivals and the small boats crisis would be a small crisis. A united party with a sold record of achievement and competence would have no problem winning an election.

As things stand, the Tories’ worst enemy is actually themselves. They need to calm down and detoxify. Like a contestant on I’m a Celebrity, the last thing they need is to get bitten by a poisonous frog called Farage.