Nigel Farage has dominated British politics for the past 18 months but he owes his success to something that started 18 years ago, writes Jonathan Walker.
People keep on voting for change – maybe this time they’ll get it from Nigel Farage (Image: Getty)
The secret of Nigel Farage’s success has been revealed – by an unlikely source. Reform UK remains the most popular party in the UK according to opinion polls, although the outcome of the next general election is still uncertain. Mr Farage is known for his campaigns against the EU, and Reform UK is seen as the party most likely to bring down immigration.
But detailed research, asking Reform supporters why they back the party, has found this doesn’t quite explain the party’s appeal. What’s turned many voters against the traditional parties, such as Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives, is a sense that their local communities are going downhill. Local shops are closing. The streets are rundown. People don’t feel safe going out at night. The local supermarket is putting security tags on everything, because shoplifting has become commonplace.
And there’s a sense that things are getting worse – not better. In particular, voters fear that good jobs are drying up, and their children or grandchildren will have worse lives than they did.
There’s a lazy tendency to imagine some sort of battle is taking place between the generations, with older people hoarding all the wealth at the expense of the young. The truth is that older generations want younger people to have a bright future, and are furious that it doesn’t seem to be on offer.
Many younger workers, meanwhile, are struggling with sky-high income tax payments caused by so-called student loan repayments, which are really just a stealth tax on their wages.
The rot set in back in 2008, when the banking crisis ruined the economy. More recently, we’ve had Covid, then the Ukraine war and now the war in Iran, all causing huge shocks to our standard of living. Governments tried to deal with the problems by borrowing huge sums of money, and the Treasury now spends billions just servicing its massive debt.
How have voters responded? The vote for Brexit in 2016 was a vote for change. So was Boris Johnson’s landslide election win in 2019, when he won over former Labour voters in “red wall” seats. And so, in fact, was the surge of support for Jeremy Corbyn, when he was Labour leader, and support for the Green Party today.
People keep on voting for change, but they are not getting it. And one of the beneficiaries is Mr Farage. A lot of voters hope he is the man who will finally get a grip.
The unlikely source who has analysed this is a Labour MP called Liam Byrne, previously a Treasury Minister in Gordon Brown’s Labour government.
He’s set out his theories in a book called Why Populists Are Winning. As you can tell from the title, he’s not a fan of Mr Farage. The word “populist” is rarely used as a compliment.
But his explanation for why many voters have lost faith in the traditional parties – including the one he is a member of – is spot on.
As for Reform, it remains to be seen what the future holds. A recent poll by Opinium suggested 27% of voters are planning to back Nigel Farage’s party, ahead of second-place Labour on 21%.
But the most recent YouGov poll has Reform on 23% and Labour on 19%, giving Reform UK a lead of just 4%.
If those figures are correct, it would suggest Reform is not certain to win the next election. But Nigel knows this. He’s going to be fighting hard for every vote.