Nigel Farage’s Tory manifesto

I’d say that Nigel Farage gave the best performance in last night’s debate. You might expect that: he’s a full-time television host, so he talks politics to cameras for a living. But of the seven that were on stage, he’s also the most experienced street fighter. He knew how to use humour and had a sense of insurgency to set himself against the rest. But what struck me wasn’t so much his style, as his message. On every single issue, his message was one of classic Conservatism.

I’ve written already about his distasteful suggestion that Rishi Sunak is not patriotic. In my Daily Telegraph column I also point out how a Reform surge in the Westminster voting system will win Farage three MPs at most, so fewer seats than Sinn Fein. But a Reform surge would hand Labour unprecedented political power (with the Tories potentially reduced to the third-largest party) that they will be sure to use to make it harder for Conservatives to get back in the conversation. I regard Farage, in the context of this election, as the Labour party’s most potent asset. 

But as he ends the first week as leader of Reform UK, it’s worth noting his message: Toryism without the Tories. 

The NHS model isn’t working, he said. Extra money doesn’t work: we’re now spending more than 11 per cent of our ‘national cake’ on the NHS. He cited the French insurance scheme: and said their returns on stroke, heart and cancer are better than ours. This is a point that my colleague Kate Andrews makes a lot: the model is broken and America isn’t the only alternative. You can go almost anywhere else in Europe and find a better system.

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Taxes are so high that people are opting not to work, he said. Energy bills are so expensive because we load tax energy bills to subsidise wind energy companies. During Tony Blair’s time in office, the top rate of tax was 40p and it was paid by 1.5 million people; by the end of 2027, 8 million people will be paying 40p tax – Sunak is dragging more and more people doing middle-income jobs into higher taxation. He added that hearing Penny Mordaunt – whose party has taken the tax burden to the highest level since 1948 – pretend they are a tax-cutting party is ‘dishonesty on a breathtaking scale’. The Spectator has been saying precisely this for a long time.

On climate, Farage didn’t trash net zero like he might have done but sought to advocate a Sunak-style third way. We’re pursuing completely unrealistic climate policies, he said:  Labour have pledged to decarbonise the grid by 2030, and the Tories ban buying diesel cars by 2035. If we get new technologies to give us cheaper energy, that’s great – but we’re sacrificing economic growth and destroying British manufacturing. He was wrong to say that we haven’t reduced carbon emissions more than any western countries, and that we’ve exported them to India and China. I wish Mordaunt could have picked him up on this: even if you look at consumption (rather than territorial) the UK does better than any G20 country other than Italy (as The Spectator data hub tells you). But his overall line is, again, very similar to that we have advanced in The Spectator’s leader columns over the years. 

Even Farage’s points on migration were fairly mainstream. He resisted the anti-Muslim language that he sometimes serves up and stuck to more basic points. Most who coming in are not directly productive members of the economy, he says. Most of those that come in are actually dependants. A fair point, consistent with recent visa figures on The Spectator data hub. 

Nothing to do with race, he said, it’s to do with getting net migration down to an even figure for the next few years, and maybe then we can catch up with housing and health. This is not a populist message; similar points are being currently made by the leaders of Canada and New Zealand.

Not only did Penny Mordaunt fail to defend Sunak when Farage accused him of not being patriotic, she twisted the knife over D-Day saying he was ‘completely wrong’ and had in fact let down the whole country. She’s expected to lose her seat and perhaps feels no loyalty to the man who defeated her in a leadership race where she was, briefly, the favourite. Let’s remember that Sunak foisted this election upon his stunned cabinet and told them after he had told the King, not even attempting to seek their endorsement of the decision.

The ministers now campaigning, many expecting to lose, are still furious. I know of at least one who is now telling voters on doorsteps not to worry because Sunak will soon be gone – but please vote for the local Tory candidate to stem Starmer’s majority. I suspect one of them will soon be recorded by one of these doorbell videos making the point. Anyway, the resentment Sunak’s ministers feel over this election and the accident-prone campaign is translating into Tories making a halfhearted defence of their leader. Or, in Mordaunt’s case last night, joining the attack against him. 

But Mordaunt should have jumped in when Farage suggested that stop-and-search was no longer happening. She was at least able to say that crime levels have fallen but should have added that, fraud excepted, it’s at an all-time low. It’s an amazing achievement: like the school results, also not mentioned. And being the first G20 country to halve carbon emissions: also not mentioned. If the Tory on the panel won’t list Tory achievements, then who will? 

Nigel Farage said nothing that you would not expect to hear in a Conservative party leaders’ debate. Might we, one day, hear him doing just that? After last night, I would not rule it out.