I have lost count of the number of times the Conservative Party has thought it has shot Nigel Farage’s fox. They stretch all the way back to David Cameron’s January 2013 pledge to hold an In/Out EU referendum, and include the party’s as yet unfulfilled summer promise to stop the illegal Channel crossings and its delivery of a trade deal with the EU that honours the fundamentals of Brexit.
Given that the Covid vaccines have also taken some of the sting out of the lockdown debate, which the former Ukip leader was poised to exploit, many Tories will have felt able to relax a bit about the challenge on their right-flank. If they hadn’t quite despatched the vulpine threat altogether, Jolyon Maugham-style, then surely they’d at least driven him away from the hen house.
In which case I would urge them to listen to Nigel Farage’s New Year message. Because the old boy has just thrown them a curve ball.
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