Nigel Farage getting angry at other countries taking control of their borders? He must be desperate

The Brexit Party leader is a rebel looking for a new cause, and it’s not going so well

Not that a man who has changed the course of British history needs any sympathy from the likes of me, but, what with it being Christmas and everything, I’m getting a bit worried about old Nigel Farage.

If you follow him on Twitter, for example, you’ll see that he seems to have an awful lot of time on his hands these days. He spends quite a lot of time wandering the south coast getting angry about refugees and migrants in dinghies. 

Sometimes he has taken to the high seas to intercept these boatloads of humanity and their French naval escorts, a cross between Captain Pugwash and Horatio Nelson. He also visits, uninvited, hotels full of refugees apparently just so he can be videoed being asked by hard-pressed hotel staff to go away and leave them alone (he is on private property after all). 

Now we have him calling members of the EU “bullies and thugs” for closing their borders with the UK over the new strain of Covid-19 that has become a problem in southeast England. The fact that a man who has been calling for the UK to increase its border protections against the EU for years is now calling others “bullies” for doing the same has not been lost on many. Cue the Twitter anger and jokes. 

Perhaps Farage is just getting confused, what with all his other projects online. He is involved in  some sort of non-political venture which he calls “my new crusade to help you achieve financial prosperity”, which is featured on YouTube along with various Partridge-esque “shows” such as Nigel Farage Investigates (sigh) and Farage Live, the highlight of which is an appearance by the Brexit Party’s very own Ann Widdecombe.

Lately he’s taken to making videos with his pet labrador in the local woods complaining about them cutting down trees on the grounds of health and safety, which is fair enough but not quite looking to tear apart the European Union. Other times he just seems satisfied to be photographed sitting in a pub staring at his pint looking all disconsolate,  like his political movement’s just died – which it has.

Now that Brexit has been “done” – or will be, one way or another at the harder end of the spectrum – Farage is basically out of a job. Perhaps that is why he is looking to stir the pot again. He is, strange to say, actually one of the losers from Brexit. He can cry betrayal at whatever Boris Johnson ends up with, but the public are on the whole bored with it and had enough of the argument. They have no great wish to start Brexit all over again with Nigel running it. He’s at a very loose end. As the old boy might put it, he’s got bugger all to do and all the time in the world to do it.

Farage’s horizons are smaller, more crimped these days. It wasn’t meant to be like this. His credo from a few years ago, The Purple Revolution: The Year That Changed Everything, gave the distinct impression that by now he’d be deputy prime minister in a coalition government comprising his UK Independence Party, the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionists, reuniting “proper” Thatcherites again. Alternatively he was to be the British ambassador in Trump's America, but now his most powerful ally is about to fade away, leaving only an orangey stain on public life.

(By the way I do wonder if Trump’s tweet attacking the latest UK lockdown was sent out at Farage’s behest? The line about the cure being worse than the disease has a Farageist ring to it. A last hurrah, I guess).

Farage is a rebel looking for a new cause, and it’s not going so well. His application to rebrand the Brexit Party as the Reform Party is, he claims, being held up by the Election Commissioners (can’t imagine why, can you?) As for the new Reform Party’s chosen causes, well, some seem improbable. 

Campaigning to get students a lockdown rebate on their fees would be great if only they weren’t nearly all bitterly disappointed Remainers who hate his guts. Taking a broader stand against lockdowns is more promising, except that by the time the next round of elections arrive in May the vaccination programme should be well underway and most of the lockdowns will likely be in the past. 

Which really just leaves the old standby immigration, even though we’ve left the EU, which was supposed to be the problem. Plus we’ve adopted the Farage policy of an “Australian-style points system”. He’s doubling down now on an Australian-style “pushing back” system – but Tony Abbott, ex-premier of Australia, is already a British government adviser. It’s a curious phenomenon, this jostling for the extremist vote; it is Farage who is supposed to always be annoying and outflanking Johnson to the right, not the other way around.

Even with all his undoubted talents, and indeed “achievements”, the sadness of Farage is that he is never going to be elected to the House of Commons and will never hold national power now that sovereignty has supposedly been restored. First past the post was an insuperable obstacle to Farage’s ambitions.

What Farage really needs is some handy system of national UK elections by proportional representation. These would give him some public funding, a claim on the media’s attention, and a platform from which to build his latest politucsl vehicle. A system like those we used to have for the European parliament, in fact. 

I’m wondering if he secretly misses these days dining out in the best restaurants in Strasbourg and Brussels, appearing on all TV channels, larking about on the stump, topping the poll and generally being the centre of attention. 

The blameless Herman Van Rompuy and Jean-Claude Juncker were the yin to Farage’s yang. Without them, life has little meaning. As things stand he and the rest of the gang, the self-styled “bad boys of Brexit”, need to be making some much better plans.