I see that Nigel Farage and his party Reform UK have been making the headlines the last couple of days, following his announcement that he will be standing as a candidate at the forthcoming UK General Election due to take place on Thursday 4th July 2024.
While a lot of people have been quite jubilant and celebratory about this announcement, I can’t help but feel it is all a bit sinister and underhand.
Nigel Farage has enjoyed the title of “honorary president” since he last stepped down as leader of the party and handed the reins of leadership to Richard Tice.
Now he has seen fit to “change his mind” and decide to stand for election as an MP, he has also made it so that Mr Tice stands aside so that he can assume the position of leader.
Well er, how very democratic! In my opinion, a ‘proper’ functioning political party should have internal elections so that the wider party membership can choose who their leader should be.
To add further insult to injury, Farage has also forced the party’s already-selected prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Clacton to stand aside, so that he can stand there instead.
Now it is not my place to tell people how to vote, and if you’ve already made up your mind that you’re going to vote Reform, then that’s fine with me, good for you. But as an ex-UKIP member and supporter, I’ve seen for myself over the last few years what a political charlatan Mr Farage is, so I don’t really trust him any more.
My opinion of, and support for UKIP, may have changed since I wrote the above articles, but it is my belief that what we are seeing now with Reform is just a continuation of the ‘role’ that Farage and UKIP played from 2015 to 2019. Enjoyed lots of favourable media attention, and were seen as a ‘home’ for disaffected Tory voters.
The Conservatives have little chance of winning this General Election, and like UKIP in 2015 and 2017, Reform are aiming to attract the kind of people who wouldn’t dream of voting Labour but can’t bring themselves to vote Conservative, as well as those who normally vote Conservative but have had enough and wouldn’t dream of voting Labour.
The proverbial ‘vote-splitter’. As I wrote in a previous article, I still think you’ll see a lot of ‘left-leaners’ veer towards the Greens or the Workers Party.
As for those who lean towards the ‘right-wing’, there are other more ‘genuine’ right-wing parties that you can vote for, that aren’t run by or backed by multi-millionaires, unlike Reform UK.
Anyway the point of this article is simply to point out how I believe Reform UK is not a genuine political party and is just a vehicle being used by Nigel Farage to satisfy his own ego and whims – it wasn’t enough for him to just stand as an MP at this election, he had to become the centre of attention by announcing himself as leader.
I think it’s entirely possible that Reform UK might perform well now thanks to the “Farage effect”, but sound bites and opinion polling is not the same as what actually happens on polling day.
