Richard Tice, not Nigel Farage, should terrify the Tories

The terms of the Covid debate have changed markedly since Nigel Farage decided to re-enter the political arena after Boris Johnson’s second English lockdown. Even with multiple vaccines coming on stream, we can still not rule out a third lockdown — but we can be pretty darned sure there won’t be a fourth. It’s not the end of the beginning, but the beginning of the end.

So Farage and his chief lieutenant Richard Tice can no longer depend on anti-lockdown fervour alone to give them a flying start, despite the rebellious mood of Tory MPs. Could they, therefore, decide that discretion is the better part of valour and call the whole thing off, especially if there is no Brexit deal and Britain ends up going for WTO rules as they have called for?

Well, in short, no. The pair and their closest supporters are still raring to go, doing whatever the 21st-century equivalent is of waiting by the phone to hear back from the Electoral Commission about whether their preferred rebrand as Reform UK is a goer.