Could Britain end up with Prime Minister Nigel Farage? On the one hand, we wouldn’t put any more money on it than, say, the New York Times was prepared, on election eve in 2016, to put on Donald Trump. On the other hand, feature what’s happening as Britons prepare to go to the polls to select their delegation to the next European “Parliament.”
That vote is set for May 23. Had Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservatives honored the Brexit referendum of 2016, Britain wouldn’t have to participate in the blasted EU election. Voters decided, after all, to leave the EU, and a departure date of March 29 was all set. Mrs. May, though, betrayed the referendum. And now Britain has to elect a delegation to sit in the EU “Parliament.”
In that election, the party polling at the head of the field is the Brexit Party. It was founded at the last minute by Nigel Farage. He’s the former head of the United Kingdom Independence Party who led the campaign for Britain to return to being a sovereign country. In the aftermath of his victory, though, he quit UKIP because it was taking on a xenophobic tone.
That’s something on which to pause. Offhand, it’s hard to think of any leader in Britain, or many elsewhere, who quit his party over a point of principle against xenophobia. Yet Mr. Farage did that, having concluded that UKIP was too focused against Islam. Instead, he became leader of a new party, the Brexit Party. It was founded in January of this year, and, in the latest polling for the EU election, is now way out in front.
It’s an amazing situation. The new Brexit Party is ahead of both Mrs. May’s governing Tories and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labor Party. “Massive” is the word Politico’s headline writers are using for the gains pollsters predict for the Brexit Party in the May 23 vote. The Guardian is headlining a poll finding that Mr. Farage’s Brexit Party may win more EU election votes than the Tories and Labor combined.
The latest poll quoted by the Guardian suggests that 34% of voters will vote for Mr. Farage’s party. Polls suggest support for the Conservatives, as the Tories are also called, has “collapsed,” amid the “Brexit uncertainty,” to just 11%. Labor, bedeviled by charges of anti-Semitism, is polling at 21%. The best showing of any “openly anti-Brexit” party, the Liberal Democrats, is 12%, the Guardian says.
It would be unwise, we sense, to make too much of these polls. If we all learned anything in 2016, it was that polls are fickle. A lot can happen in two weeks; the Brexit Party wasn’t even formally registered until February of this year. Yet it would also be unwise, we sense, to make too little of this. Come May, Britain’s biggest delegation in Strasbourg could be the party that doesn’t want to be there at all.
What a vote of no-confidence that would be in respect of the EU — and of the Conservative Party that betrayed the Brexit referendum. So the question that is starting to rattle around Europe is whether, given the failure of character in the Conservative Party, Mr. Farage could eventually, in a general election at home, lead the Brexit Party into Britain’s own Parliament. Once he’s there, how far might he be able to go?
History suggests caution on both points. In the June 2017 general election in Britain, UKIP was roundly defeated — it ended up with no seat in Parliament. That happened just a year after it had played such a triumphant role in the 2016 Brexit referendum. So it won’t be easy for Mr. Farage to get himself into Britain’s Parliament. Never mind ending up as Prime Minister.
Yet the headline in the Independent this evening is that Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party would beat the Conservatives in a general election, coming in behind Labor. There is no general election yet, and Mr. Farage hasn’t even expressed a personal interest in Westminster. Just the prospect, though, ups the pressure on Mrs. May to resign. For if the drama of Brexit has taught us anything, it is to avoid taking the British voters for granted.
@ Russell:
Hi, Russell.
American humorist Bill Bryson once said that the English “would make perfect communists, loving to queue, not complaining, etc.”
— https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/749213446
After spending several evenings listening to call-ins to Nigel Farage, I agree with Bill: The callers had opinions across the spectrum, often being completely opposed to Nigel and his stand, yet both they and Mr. Farage sounded like friends chatting over tea! In the US, the best of friends, backing identical political stances, often get hot under the collar.
The polls have already shown a significant defection of Labor voters to Brexit; but even if the general election were to exactly duplicate the polls, Labor would still be tapped to form the government and could control the UK through an alliance with the Lib Dems, Scottish Nationalists, etc.
We’ll see how things turn out. I hope for the best.
There are millions of labour voters that will swing to Farage’s party simply because the labour party has a communist at its head. They now have an alternative to the weak and unpopular Conservatives and have been let down badly after their (conservatives) failure to action the Brexit referendum as voted for by the majority. Farage must work hard but his timing looks perfect.
Votes for the EU Parliament are largely protest votes, as Europe is run by unelected bureaucrats and Parliament has little power. Farage’s “charge up San Juan Hill” is largely for local consumption.
In the upcoming general UK elections, if they ever happen this year, it’s certain that the Conservatives will get smashed, and odds favor an anti-Brexit Labor-Liberal coalition coming to power. Farage seems to be hoping that an excellent showing on May 23 will give him enough support to out-vote Antisemite Corbyn’s Labor Party and allow the Brexit Party to form its own, pro-Brexit government.
The people’s will is unquestionably pro-Brexit and anti-Labor; but as recent history shows us, the British Deep State can pretty handily thwart the will of the British people.
I hope that Farage and Brexit can go all the way. The only alternative now is that odious Corbyn and his antisemiic crew.