Nigel Farage gave a greatest hits performance that left no cliche unturned at a Reform UK election event in Houghton-le-Spring on Thursday.Nigel Farage gave a greatest hits performance that left no cliche unturned at a Reform UK election event in Houghton-le-Spring on Thursday.all it confirmation bias.
With the Tories lurching from crisis to crisis – insulting the vets at the D-day commemorations and then the insider gambling ring – and Labour offering a don’t-rock-the-boat, safety-first approach, the campaign has been low on energy. A low-wattage endurance test. Hell, no one said politics was meant to be fun, but some hope would be nice. Promising to make things a little less shit doesn’t really cut it. And there’s no vacuum into which Nige won’t jump head first. Anything for some attention.
But there is undeniably a connection. One that Sunak and Starmer would kill for. One that allows Nige to get away with almost anything. Because you’d expect a crowd like this to have worked out Farage long ago. A posh, establishment boy with no real interest in the north-east. Just another politician passing through. Yet their scepticism is put on hold. They appear to buy into his act entirely. They know he’s a fraud but they don’t care. At least he’s an entertaining fraud.
Then into his familiar tropes. The country wasn’t working. You couldn’t move without someone wanting to rob or kill you. Probably a foreigner. Farage would be devastated to find out that most people aren’t afraid to walk the streets. People should be proud of their history, he said. Though not confident enough in it to question it. Nige doesn’t do critical thinking. Not his style. Keep your prejudices and hatreds mainstream.