Who is the most consequential politician of the last 15 years? Only one answer: Nigel Farage. No one else has, single-handedly, had such an impact on the course of our recent history.
And when you consider he has done this, until the last few months, from outside Westminster, and beyond the reach of the established political parties, it is all the more remarkable. You don’t have to like the guy to recognise that essential truth.
Yet, incredibly, Farage is set to get even more consequential in the coming months and years.
For some politicians, a snap with Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago would be a fleeting and quickly forgotten piece of PR. But not for Farage. His meeting with Musk yesterday could have a profound impact on the future direction of politics. As if Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch weren’t already panicking enough about the potential threat of Reform, they will be in a full-on tailspin now.
Because the two big advantages that Labour and the Conservatives have over Farage could now be shred to pieces, if Musk does come through with his eye-watering donation to Reform. Even the absurd figure of $100 million, and who knows where that came from, would be small change to the world’s richest man.
First, data. The two big parties know as much as there is to know, or certainly should do, about how to target their voters, what buttons to press, where they live and, for all I know, who they sleep with. Decades of tracking, logging and monitoring have enabled them to build up that hugely detailed picture.
Secondly, branding. Yes, of course, Farage has raised the profile of his new party from a standing start, in just five years, to a degree that I can only call utterly spectacular. However, and this isn’t a criticism, it is all about him personally. Without Nigel, Reform is half the party it is now. The same cannot be said of Labour without Keir, or the Tories without Kemi. Yes, Boris Johnson had a huge persona, but even he didn’t dominate his party like Nigel does with Reform.
But if Musk really does donate all that wonga, Farage can play catch-up, and even leapfrog, in double-quick time. And it could mean that Reform is able to ensure, through heavyweight marketing, technology and targeting, that never again does it achieve the wretched return of only one seat for every million (yes million) votes. You might or might not like it, but Musk’s millions could make a huge difference to who wins the next election.
We can already see how much Reform’s rise is causing not just a headache for the Tories and Labour, but a full-on brain haemorrhage. Labour might have every excuse in the world for messing around with the dates for next May’s local elections, but we all know that terror of what Reform might achieve is right up there as reason number one.
As for Kemi Badenoch, she was in my view the correct and obvious choice to be Conservative leader. I support her. But even I have to admit that unless she ups her game pronto, there will be more high-profile defections to join Farage, each one like an angry nail in the Tory coffin.
The demise of the Labour-Tory hegemony has been predicted before. Those of us old enough to remember the early 1980s will recall David Steel, Liberal leader, telling his supporters to “go back to their constituencies and prepare for government.” The Labour leader at that time, Michael Foot, really did seem to be dragging his party to a slow, agonising death.
More recently, with Labour electing Jeremy Corbyn, there was a brief flurry of excitement when Change UK was making all the running – only to lose air and crash to the ground before anyone had time to laugh.
But this Reform surge feels different. It feels big, significant and, to Farage’s many enemies, hugely threatening. They won’t be sleeping easily in their beds.
