Maybe Farage isn’t so libertarian after all

Illustration by David Foldvari

“Unsure” feels like the best word to describe Labour’s position. There’s a whiff of U-turns in the air (I’m guessing they smell like U-bends). Keir Starmer said at prime minister’s questions last month that he “wants to ensure… that more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments” and, as this paper revealed last Sunday, the government is preparing to scrap the two-child benefit cap. So it may be that the Labour government ends up doing exactly what Reform UK is now proposing, which would be weird. Or it may be that Reform UK’s policy will turn out to be somehow more leftwing than Labour’s, which would be weirder.

I feel sorry for Labour. It’s desperately trying to find a way to believe that these two limits on public expenditure – that it announced with such self-conscious solemnity on winning the election last year, that it pointed to as proof of the incoming administration’s fiscal prudence – have turned out to be unnecessary. Perhaps we don’t need to tighten our belts, after all, and the real government can spaff money around with the same alacrity as Farage’s pretend government says it would. The real books can be balanced as easily as Reform UK’s fictional books. Wouldn’t that be nice? Then all of Labour’s local election losses can be reversed and its grumbling backbenchers assuaged.

Of course we’ve all got to take Reform UK seriously, haven’t we? That’s the consensus. Reform UK keeps informing us of how seriously we need to take it, and all the established parties keep warning themselves how serious the challenge from Reform UK is. Everyone’s agreed on that. The old parties need to look at all the divisive things Reform UK is saying and find a half-arsed way to copy them, otherwise they’re guilty of the most disgraceful political naivety.

Oh yes, Reform UK is a reality we all have to face up to, so let’s not mock the Reform UKsters, even as they announce that only union jacks and England flags are to be flown from their council buildings, forgetting, in their hurry to blow a xenophobic dog whistle, that there are such things as county flags and lots of people involved with county councils enjoy flying them. On day one, they were already pissing off some of their own little Englanders, but still let’s take them seriously and treat them with respect.

The trouble is I really haven’t got any respect for them, so I’d just be pretending. I think they’re buffoons. I think they’re nasty idiots. I’m not saying that means they won’t get into office. God knows, it might help. Their whole ill-focused, squabbly angry vibe is proving very useful to them at the moment. It gives nonsensical, uncosted, contradictory policy announcements a sort of emotional truth. Meanwhile, the likes of Starmer are left wringing their hands trying to find a meeting point between responsible government and political exigency. Reform UK’s spokespeople don’t bother with any of that – they say what they feel. They promise and they blame as the mood takes them – and they’re free to continue doing so until they win a general election.

Farage insists that this is a real possibility and, perhaps as a sign of contempt for the Conservatives, is overtly targeting Labour. Meanwhile, “Labour insiders”, perhaps as a sign of contempt for the Conservatives, are obligingly echoing Farage’s estimation of his own chances.

So I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised that, in the middle of his speech last week, Farage said this: “I’ve got a great idea, why don’t the prime minister and I go to a working man’s club somewhere in the red wall and we’ll sit there and let them ask us questions, and you can all come along and cover it live.” If that counts as a great idea, I’d hate to see what else came out of the brainstorm. As TV shows go, it might be a tough watch. But he’s trying to prove a point: Starmer has “no connection with working people”, he says.

I don’t know about that. But what is true is that, in a pub-style scenario such as a working man’s club, Nigel Farage is in his element. He’s had more photos taken of him holding a pint than anyone on Earth who isn’t a darts player. His whole image is of boozy, smoke-smelling bonhomie. Challenging Starmer to be equally comfortable in that sort of environment is like challenging him to beat him in a Nigel Farage lookalike competition.

Of the two men, I suspect Farage is the easier to chat to. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ve never met Keir Starmer so I only have his public image to go on and, frankly, he comes across as serious and worried. He might be hard work. I have met Farage, a decade or more ago, and he is exactly as he seems on the news: jovial and vacuous. Easy to chat to but there are diminishing returns. Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure he was glad to get away from me too.

That was back when he said he was a libertarian. He may not fully realise it, but that is actually a coherent political approach. I’ve always thought it mean-spirited but there are sound underlying principles: respect for freedom and the individual, and an understandable scepticism about how much power and money should be vested in state institutions.

But he has entirely dropped it. Why? How can he suddenly be content to enlarge state expenditure (albeit while pretending he will simultaneously be able to cut taxes)? What does he actually stand for? Why does he want power? What does he want to do with it? I think it would be safer not to find out.