Farage’s Lowe blow

None of it is turning out quite how Nigel Farage planned. Not Brexit, which continues to inflict misery on the UK – this week saw unlucky British tourists stranded at airports when airlines misapplied EU passport expiry rules and stopped them boarding their flights. And definitely not his self-proclaimed close friendship with Donald Trump, which was supposed to push Farage and Reform towards power while unlocking the mystic benefits of Brexit.

Let’s run through the last few months once again. The Republican reptile (who once said “they’re calling me Brexit Trump” though obviously no-one was) returns to the White House and Farage is delighted. Then Trump’s bullying of Ukraine and its president not only unites Europe in fear and loathing, it forces the UK firmly back into the orbit of the European Union after years of Tory distrust and months of Labour dither.

Closer alignment with Brussels grows more likely and Brexiteer dreams of a deregulated UK signing a US trade deal recede. And as Keir Starmer takes a lead on European defence and security, the Trump-whispering Putin apologist who leads Reform sees his poll ratings drop. Trump even praises Starmer, his accent and his wife. As that great internationalist Jimmy Greaves nearly observed, global politics is a funny old game. 

And now a new indignity for Farage – a split in his Reform party. Rupert Lowe, the ruddy-faced former football chairman whose dogwhistling on migrants is even more shrill than Farage’s own, has given a decidedly sniffy interview about him to the Daily Mail. Asked whether Clacton’s absentee MP would make a good prime minister, Lowe replied carefully: “It’s too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods. He can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people.

“Nigel is a fiercely independent individual and is extremely good at what we have done so far. He has got messianic qualities. Will those messianic qualities distil into sage leadership? I don’t know.

“We have to change from being a protest party led by the Messiah into being a properly structured party with a frontbench, which we don’t have… Nigel is a messianic figure who is at the core of everything but he has to learn to delegate, as not everything can go through one person.

“So we have to start developing policy which is going to change the way we govern. I’m not going to be by Nigel’s side at the next election unless we have a proper plan to change the way we govern from top to bottom.”

An invitation to praise that turns into a threat to quit is hardly a vote of confidence in Farage, and rumours persist that Lowe thinks himself deserving of a higher profile than he currently has now. Could he be planning a leadership challenge, or even a defection to the Conservatives, with whom he says Reform should strike a deal? Who knows, and frankly, who cares when we can all just enjoy Reform, whose combined MPs could fit in a phone box, actually starting a row in a phone box.

Even in these tense and hectic times, you can be sure Farage’s discomfort is being enjoyed in Brussels too. Those who looked in horror as he tore into European Commission president Herman Van Rompuy – a man of real substance, credited with taming raging debt in Belgium – for having “the charisma of a damp rag” and “the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk” will no doubt be loving the spectacle of seeing Farage humiliated by a man who is below even Lee Anderson in Reform’s pecking order and who once appointed rugby coach Clive Woodward as Southampton’s director of football.

We have Donald Trump to thank for setting all this in motion. If as a result of his actions, we get rid of both Brexit and Nigel Farage, don’t just settle for the state visit – give him that peace prize too.