The English Rebellion

Farage is marshaling a new army in provincial England to storm the Bastille of Westminster.

Fresh off victory in May’s local elections, Nigel Farage, grinning ear-to-ear with that signature Cheshire-cat smile, a foaming pint of real ale in hand, stands before his newly assembled army in what might just be the most romantically English setting possible, a pub deep in Lincolnshire. He is the Duke of Marlborough reborn, a general who has never lost a battle, a man who defines the battleground on his terms and his terms only. The great leviathan beast, the Conservative party, which has remained entrenched in the county’s DNA for decades, lies dead at his feet and around its corpse the victors celebrate and toast a new tomorrow. For this army has its sights on another herculean effort: the gleaming fortress of Westminster, impregnable, but wearing with age, cracks already forming at the base of the bastille. Farage is certain, he assures the faithful, that with a few heaves, the whole decaying structure can come down.

As Reform cements its regional presence through local government, establishing the networks and strongholds of a truly nationwide political party, talk of it winning hundreds of MPs and having a role in the next government no longer seems fantastical.

Although another general election is not due until 2029, both Britain’s major parties find themselves in a brutal struggle with these populist insurgents. Labour, whose hesitant performance in government derives in part from a dizzy uncertainty about its mandate – its huge parliamentary majority resting precariously on a mere third of the popular vote – already has the bedraggled appearance of a depleted administration. Alarmingly, Reform’s populist message appears to resonate with Labour’s core working-class base, without which it might shrivel into an uncompetitive party of the urban intelligentsia. Tory anxieties are similarly existential, indeed more so. The Conservatives – reduced at July’s election to a rump of 121 MPs – face the daunting possibility of extinction.

The stunning rise of Reform UK parallels political trends across the Western world. Nativist anti-immigrant parties have displaced traditional parties of the centre right in France, the Netherlands and Italy. Populism – mostly on the right, but sometimes on the left, and often positioned as the voice of authentic working-class concerns – has disorientated politicians across the political spectrum. The mainstream left, such as the Social Democrats in Germany, no longer seems naturally attuned to the concerns of ordinary people. In the US Farage’s friend Donald Trump and his Maga followers have hijacked the Republican Party. Everywhere one looks, the momentum in politics seems to lie with illiberal populist movements and nativist start-ups.

Explanations for this widespread phenomenon tend to be correspondingly broad-based. Globalisation has been devastating for many regions that flourished in earlier phases of Western industrialisation, but are now scenes of disused factories and exhausted coalfields. Mass migration has led to further dislocation, especially for the populations of these left-behind places. This is exacerbated by “welfare chauvinism”: the benevolence that legitimises welfare states appears to extend only to one’s own kind. Commentators have also noticed across the West a cultural backlash against what is perceived as the hyper-liberalism of university-educated elites. Liberal identity politics – an emphasis on the rights of minorities, on multiculturalism and on a green agenda – as well as the opposition to it are both products of a turn against materialism, whereby an emphasis on values and identities is replacing a class politics based on economic management, wealth distribution and the burden of taxation.

Frictions between the generations and growing divergences between male and female voting patterns compound these trends. Older voters are dismayed at the whirl of social change, while an aggressive new form of masculinity among younger males – the attitudes associated with the online manosphere – questions what it regards as the lopsidedly feminised cultures of educational institutions and workplaces. Yet, whereas in previous eras traditional media outlets were able to filter out obnoxious opinion, social media algorithms now place a premium on provocation, which has the effect of bringing rowdy populism from the margins into the mainstream.

It remains to be seen how Reform weaponises this newfound power. The party, to its benefit, is relatively scarce on concrete policy details, granting it the flexibility to outmanoeuvre its opponents by adapting to the ever-changing winds of what the voters demand and never allowing itself to be properly defined, allowing voters to project what they want onto the party. If Nigel Farage were an artist, he would be a celebrated impressionist. He has a refined, seemingly effortless talent for painting the distilled essence of a political movement. What does Reform stand for? Even seasoned politicos might struggle to name or detail a Reform policy, but the party’s “vibe” couldn’t be easier to feel.

The finesse of how to govern well can wait — for now, Reform can simply ride the wave, propelled by the euphoric high of political momentum. Realism and political temperance comes second to whether “The Establishment” is running scared. The old playbook is simple: identify ruling power structures that feel distant and aloof, be they parties or institutions, and campaign against them in an uncompromising, boisterous fashion.

But Farage’s script, refined over a political career spanning decades, is changing. He has declared, both privately and publicly, that he hopes to lead Reform into government in the next election. That’s quite a shift in political aim: from outsider revolutionary to governor.

One of most effective tools in Farage’s arsenal has been his tight, clear messaging. But, as recent history tells us, marrying rhetoric with reality is a challenging business. It wasn’t so long ago that “stop the boats” was launched as a short, simple and seductive slogan. Stopping the boats in practice? Well, just ask Rishi Sunak for just how challenging three short words can be to put into effect. Recognising the challenge of governing actually requiring policy, senior Reform operatives are working to set up a politically aligned think tank to support policy development, modelled on the US think tanks that serve as ideological outriders to the Trump presidency, the FT has reported. It cited an internal document that declared the planned organisation would “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal” and seek to “change opinion around key issues and provide technocratic competence”.

But the very act of defining a policy platform will reveal tensions simmering between the surface. The prevalence of foreign money in British think tanks is quite limited — especially when compared with equivalent American outfits and their vast endowments, payrolls and genuinely global influence. But the FT reported that Reform’s proposed think tank would seek funding from “US donors from MAGA, tech [and] religious conservatives”, in addition to more regular UK sources of funding. No wonder Farage is looking abroad — the sheer scale of US political money embarrasses our own campaign and political research spending. Looking for dollars from the United States, the new Right certainly fits the pattern of Farage’s regular cross-Atlantic visits — and his genuine star appeal at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a jamboree of American Right-wing politicians, broadcasters and influencers.

But Reform’s choice to seek inspiration and funding from a country which has an entirely different political culture could become its undoing. Reform’s online activists too are steeped daily in the disputatious politics of the American Right. Emboldened and energised by a fresh Trump-MAGA victory, the American new Right might look like a winning template for populist-Right parties worldwide. But Reform should exercise caution in the lessons it draws from abroad. There is a discordance between a more pedestrian party of suburban, coastal England, and the radical libertarian-conservative ideology of Silicon Valley tech elites like Peter Thiel and Musk that leads the American new Right. They may align on attitudes to immigration and share the culture war scepticism of anything “woke”, but it doesn’t take long to find friction between the two movements. Whether you consider it a national fault or not, Brits are simply less culturally or ideologically invested than the average American in radical, sweeping changes in the scope of the state.

It’s a glimpse behind the curtains at his personal Thatcherite past. And while the Siren call of American money will be welcome to a movement without established labour union or business funding routes, Reform will have to watch itself and avoid trying to push radical American libertarianism on its more staid, less provocative voters.

Farage is self-aware about his place in British political tradition, but the way he positions himself in relation to his antecedents is at times surprising. This is because Farage – though at one time a member of the Conservative Party – presents himself as a classical liberal. In his memoirs he stresses the influence on his ideological formation of John Stuart Mill’s argument that “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”. Farage has described these as “sacred words” and maintains that his political creed is one centred on the individual’s right to “self-determination”.

The undeniable strength of the Reform and Farage brands can paper over a lot of these contradictions on the way up in the polls. When you don’t fill the policy space, voters imagine what they like, and project it onto parties they culturally identify with. But as Reform professionalises, media scrutiny intensifies, and the general election draws nearer, policy positions, influenced by think tanks, will have to start crystallising, exposing the ideological cracks in the party coalition. Farage will need to decide soon if he wants to continue to be the revolutionary leader and terroriser of institutions, or start to work out a framework for actually steering them as a leader. If these tensions aren’t addressed, expect a bumpier ride in the near future.

At their core, Reform–supporting Britons are voting against the radical, disorienting pace of social and economic change experienced in recent decades. Society has moved too fast for them, and they don’t understand it. But unlike their American equivalents, they want to ease off the accelerator, not stamp hard on the brakes. Farage the impressionist can paint feeling but a government needs blueprints, budgets and hard choices. With the local elections, it’s Reform’s first big test to see if they can actually solve the litany of problems that face the British state when given the opportunity to do so. It’s hard to resist the wealth of American money, but Reform should never forget that even if we share a language, we do not share a culture — and there has rarely been a time more in need of solutions over vibes.