Nigel Farage’s biggest gift to the Labour party

Labour has a lot of reasons to be thankful for Nigel Farage. Reform was already creeping up on the Tories in the polls, even before the party’s honorary president announced this week that he would take up the role of leader and stand in Clacton. Now the polls are nearly neck-and-neck. The most recent YouGov survey – published on Wednesday, accounting for Farage’s announcement but not Tuesday night’s debate – showed Reform on 17 per cent, a mere two points behind the Conservatives.

As Katy Balls notes in this week’s magazine, Farage likes to insist that Reform tends to take more votes from Labour than the Tories, but the main bloc up for grabs seems to be 2019 Tory voters. ‘Those people who are saying they’re going to vote Labour won’t when they see that I’m here and what I’m standing for in this election’, Farage told Channel 4 this week. Perhaps, but Boris Johnson’s supporters in the Red Wall are just as likely to see him too.