Nearly 10 years ago, Nigel Farage told LBC he would leave the country if Brexit were not a stunning success. For reasons that no one can quite fathom, he is still here. Could it be that he is a man who can’t be trusted to keep his word? Surely not.
Nige wants you to know he’s very much still around. He might have been a bit quiet over the past few weeks, as Reform had to deal with one or two unfortunate investigations into their funding, but now he’s very much back. And he’s definitely not rattled that Labour has a prime minister the country likes. Nor is he at all rattled that Reform has tumbled into second place in the polls. Oh, no. Because Nige believes in Nige. Now more than ever. The last creepy-crawly after the apocalypse. Lying on its back, gasping for air. But still breathing. The dream still alive.
Welcome to the new Reform roadshow. Much the same as the last Reform roadshow, only with added desperation. You can almost sense the jeopardy. A dream receding into the distance. Supporters clinging just that bit tighter to each other in the echo chamber. The cheers just a bit too forced. The performance ever more contrived. Just a rehash of all the old lines with a flashing light show thrown in. We are promised one a week from now until the next general election. It’s going to be a long three years. Even Nige might be sick of Nige by then.
For the first outing of The Rolling Grievance Tour, Reform had taken over a room at Doncaster racecourse. But we were made to wait for Nige. The Reform leader goes nowhere these days without a couple of charisma-free fluffers as his warm-up acts. Men whose sole job is to make Nige look good. Men who are guaranteed to have the audience begging to be let out within minutes. First up was Matt Goodwin, the candidate who failed to get elected in Gorton and Denton. Someone who everyone seems to dislike on sight. Because it saves time that way. His sole function appears to be to make Nige look a little less unpleasant.
Then we had Richard Tice. Dicky would travel the length of the country if he was told there was going to be an audience of two. He is the very definition of needy. He is also spectacularly dim in the way that only posh boys can be. On the self-awareness scale he drops below zero. He has no idea people are laughing at him, not with him.
His attempts to be down with the little people were met with collective despair. “My first job was digging trenches,” he said, desperate to ingratiate himself with an audience he openly despises. Mate, you became director of that multimillion-pound property empire because your grandfather owned it. In a fairer world, you would still be a complete nobody. At best, you would be a low-achieving middle manager somewhere. Instead, Dicky thinks he is eyeing up a cabinet post in the next government. “If I fail to deliver in 100 days, I will resign,” he promised. Why not just call it quits now?
Then a video of Nige saying he couldn’t be bought. Except he can. With a £70 cameo video or what looked like a £5m inducement from a Thai crypto-billionaire to lure him out of retirement. Then the man himself. Looking tired. Struggling to find his usual energy as he went through his familiar numbers. All this hate must be exhausting. But it was worth it, when he was a novelty. No one asked too many questions. He could pretend to be an insurgent. The anti-establishment choice. Except he will never be anything but the establishment.
He began by insulting his audience. First by claiming the St Leger was the first classic of the season when it is the last – if you’re going to try to ingratiate yourself, you should at least get some basic facts right – then by rubbishing Doncaster itself. It was a shithole. He couldn’t imagine why anyone still lived there. If what the residents did could actually be called living. Still, he was doing them a favour by granting them an hour in his presence. So they did have that.
“Ed Miliband is never seen in Doncaster,” he declared. Yup. And you’re never seen in Clacton. So that evens things up. At least he’s in the cabinet. Time to talk about foreigners coming over in small boats. They were all a security risk. Terrorists. As the incident at Fairford proved. I’m sure the police will be thrilled to have Nige commenting on a live investigation. He had earlier even suggested that the men had deliberately got themselves arrested so they could time the police response. Even Matt the Twat isn’t that half-witted.
On and on Nige went. Same old lines. Same old grievances. Nothing positive to say other than that he would miraculously cure the entire country in 100 days. A task that may take other politicians decades. It goes without saying he didn’t say how. Just believe. A man of his brilliance can do anything. Moral decline, he said sadly. We are a Judeo-Christian country. Foreigners had been put on warning. Yawn.
Inevitably, we got to Andy Burnham’s promise to reset the country’s relationship with the EU. Nige was certain it would be a disaster. Because Brexit had been a tremendous success and Burnham was seeking division. The irony meter had ramped up several notches. No one does division quite like Nige. It’s his USP. Though weirdly he has achieved some consensus. Thanks to him, most of the country now thinks Brexit was an idiotic idea. Quite the achievement. He also went on to accuse Andy of smashing the pensioners by removing the triple lock. He may want to tell Thick Dick that. Dicky is on record as saying the triple lock had to go.
“I am different,” he said in conclusion. He wasn’t in politics for rank or status. He had enough money to do what he liked. He was getting on a bit. In fact, he wasn’t sure why he was doing this. Other than the fact he is a raging narcissist who craves constant attention and affirmation. As if to prove the point he insisted that people kept begging him to save them. In his mind, he is the Messiah. The second coming. He didn’t want to change the electoral system, he wanted to abolish it. After him, there would be no need for elections. The thousand year Reich. Nirvana.
All he wanted was just a normal far-right country. A place where England was for the English. Once we had deported all foreign criminals there would be no need for prisons because white people would stop breaking the law. Foreigners were dragging us down. Spiritually, financially, morally. We had lost our way like lost sheep. All we had to do was believe in Nige. An act of faith. Only not even Nige believes in Nige any more.