It has a Prime Minister who leads a government that has no leadership: its ministers can say almost anything they want on the most important political crisis in living memory. The government is in a parliament in which it has no majority to agree on any decision relating to the most important crisis in living memory. The Prime Minister’s own party is desperate to get rid of her, but she refuses to relinquish (her meaningless) power, and they lack the means to force her out before more damage is done.
The governing party cannot agree how to deal with the
most important political crisis in living memory, but neither can the
opposition either; in this way, the two main parties are each divided into
three or more incoherent and contradictory factions. The only established party
that has a coherent position on the issue (the Liberal Democrats) are
themselves being challenged by other (newer) parties, thus fracturing their
wider cause into disconnected and uncooperative elements.
Given the nature of the crisis and the intellectual
inadequacies nakedly displayed by the people involved, a way out of the current
crisis looks impossible. All that can be agreed is to defer agreement on how to
deal with the crisis, which has now simply resulted in the sudden emergence of
the “Brexit Party”, with Nigel Farage poised to take ruthless advantage. There
are no options on the table now that do not look bad for the main parties; only
a menu of choices ranging from politically bad, to terrible, or apocalyptic.
Nigel Farage looks likely to be able to exploit all of them.
In this way, Britain’s political class is divided and
rudderless as never before.
As mentioned, into
this “perfect storm” rides Nigel Farage, strategically positioned to take
advantage of the “black hole” that Brexit has sucked in the Westminster establishment to a death-spiral of political oblivion. Using a
strategically-adept sense of timing, Farage has allowed Westminster to simply
destroy itself from within, its established parties simply displaying their own
innate contradictions and failings in the face of Brexit.
Farage is both politically smarter than his
established opponents give him credit for, and strategically more adept in
understanding the fundamentals of modern politics compared to those who have only worked within the anachronistic structures of the Westminster bubble.
Playing the long game
While Farage is no intellectual, he has shown on
several occasions a extremely canny reading of the political landscape, content
to play the long game. Over a period of twenty years, he has succeeded in
making an issue that very few people thought about (EU membership) become the
defining issue of British politics. While his career has shown ups and downs,
looking at things in the current situation, the trend of his political career
has shown an unquestionable movement towards a greater and greater domination
of the British political landscape. Yes, his career has had knock-backs (such
as the numerous times he has failed to become a MP, and his various spells as
UKIP leader); but the wider trend shows how he has been able to take an opportunity to make political capital of a situation and exploit it ruthlessly.
This is what has made him a political figure that his opponents have underestimated at their peril. While his appeal was initially
marginal, his charisma seems to have appealed over time to a larger and larger
segment of the electorate, when measured against his political opponents. In
this sense, while Farage’s initial charisma was seen as a trivial distraction
from the serious work of politics, the leading politicians in Westminster have
over time simply displayed more and more of their inadequacies. Farage has the
advantage of not needing to demonstrate his intellect compared to his political
“betters” because his persona has that factored-in from the start. His
supporters follow Farage because of his charisma, not his intellect; his appeal
is his persona as a “man on the street” (regardless of whether it is a true
reflection or not).
This was the impression he gave from the very
beginning, so everyone identifies with that aspect of his personality. People
like Cameron or Miliband could never hope to project that same impression
because they would always be known for their orthodox political careers; they
were “regular” politicians, and any attempts to show their charisma would
always be balanced against that.
May and Corbyn, the “next generation” on, have other
failings. May’s personality issues are now well-documented, while Corbyn’s
charisma is, while genuine, limited in impacting only on those who share his
old-fashioned view of politics. Given the changes of leadership in the
mainstream parties, Farage is in some ways now an “established insurgent” in
the political scene, given his long career on the sidelines, and his sharp rise
in influence since 2010.
As said earlier, Farage’s high public recognition
gives him the advantage of familiarity (everyone knows who he is, even if they
disagree with him). Then the fact that his charisma is equally well-established
in the public consciousness is another advantage. The last remaining factor is
the actions of his opponents. Back at the “height” of UKIP popularity five
years ago, Farage’s party came top of the European parliament elections
(finishing in the high twenties), just above the other main parties. Five years
on, and thanks to the collective rank incompetence of his opponents, he has
been given an open goal (or at times failed to appear on the pitch at all);
this explains how his new “Brexit Party” can manage to poll in the low
thirties, at least ten points ahead of the next party.
The situation is extraordinary in every sense of the
word, but Farage’s opponents have simply been doing most of his work for him,
destroying each other’s credibility when not destroying their own. Farage
simply has to step back from the fray (as he had been doing until a few months
ago), and wait for the moment to strike. Worse, his opponents have given him
all the rhetorical ammunition he needs to stir the emotions of the electorate
in his favour.
The “betrayal” narrative is now in full flow; the people who
voted for Brexit have been stabbed in the back by traitorous politicians, who
have simply rolled over to appease the European conspiracy against British
independence. See? That’s how easy it is say such things, regardless of how
many distortions and mistruths that narrative might involve.
Farage knows how to play the rhetorical game to a tee,
though, and seems not to care too much about where that might lead. As said
earlier, Farage may well have been playing a ”long game”, not too bothered
about the means used to get what he wants, as long as the “end” is ultimately
reached. He may have once been pilloried by Russell Brand as a “Pound Shop
Enoch Powell”, but in the longer view, such slights can be laughed off or
dismissed as the complaints of the “metropolitan elite” who simply play into
Farage’s own well-established rhetoric of outsider victimhood. Beyond the city limits of London, Farage’s sentiments would be shared by many.
Given that the politicians in Westminster were never
able to play a “long game” like Farage, they were only interested in generating
the next headline in the “Daily Mail”; and such short-termism has consequences, as David Cameron found out. Theresa May’s own political strategy has been
arguably even more cynically short-term (and a sign of her lack of intellectual
foresight): she seems to be only ever interested in doing what is necessary to stay in power until the following month, which explains her Brexit strategy of delaying
any decision where possible, or finding a route that can avoid her position
being challenged.
The "Betrayal Party"
Now that the “betrayal” narrative has a willing and
captive audience, Farage can exploit this to make as much political capital as
possible. As the “last man standing” from the Brexit imbroglio, it is quite
possible that he will be the only politician with public recognition that many
people will be willing to trust. The advantage of Farage’s well-established
rhetoric is that he has made it easy for himself to deflect blame for any
errors on his part towards the actions of his opponents: he can play the
perpetual “victimized outsider”, targeted by an elite only interested in
suppressing his "popular uprising". He has already used the term “coalition against
the people” to describe Westminster and Whitehall, while in the past has
referred to his movement as a “people’s army”. This is the rhetoric of a
Populist demagogue.
Farage doesn’t need to win over a majority to get what
he wants; he only needs to convince enough people that their will is being
betrayed, and already around a third of the electorate seem to fall into that
category. In this sense, Farage’s “Brexit Party” could more fittingly be called
the “Betrayal Party”: it is supported by those who feel they have been betrayed.
These people are happy to lend their support to a one-man personality cult whose agenda is opaque beyond evocative slogans and divisive rhetoric. They seem happy to place it all on trust; and given the dearth of quality shown in the leading parties, you can see how they would do so. A vote for Farage is both a vote for blind hope and selfless trust. It is support out of desperation and anger. It might not be the first time that politics has led people to turn to turn people and agendas they didn’t fully understand, preferring to see what they wanted to see rather than the ugly truth hiding in plain sight; but it is
the first time in living memory this has happened in Britain.
A couple of years ago, the author wrote that it had appeared that Theresa May had found a way for a mainstream party to exploit Brexit for their own advantage. Farage seems to have seen the reality, though:
Brexit is a decisive “turn” in politics that none in the old order are able to
deal with without it destroying them. It was only a matter of time before that
revealed itself.
The opportunity lying before Farage is an
extraordinary (and dangerous) one, unprecedented in British politics. Never
before has the entire British political class looked so intellectually and
strategically moribund; a beast on its last legs, just waiting for the end to
come. It is a frightening prospect to witness. Westminster is an establishment
on political life support, seemingly in a fatalistic end-of-days mood, unable
and unwilling to deal with reality outside its doors. But reality, in the face of Farage’s peculiarly British brand of Populism, is camped at the doors,
seemingly just waiting the moment to act.
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