Nigel Farage rage quits

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0:36Today I will resign as a Member of Parliament for Clacton-on-Sea, thereby forcing a by-election. This will be a people versus the establishment by-election. Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots. I'm Noah Hoffman and today I'm delighted to be joined by James Heal and William Atkinson, Assistant Content Editor at The Spectator. James, Nigel Farage has just resigned as the MP for Clacton to trigger a by-election that he will stand in. Initial reactions? So it's classic Farage. Having the emergency press conference, allowing expectations to build, standing there at the podium, thereafter listing his various grievances against the political class, and then finally at the end of it, the rabbit out the hat, the resignation.

1:22It was a 16-minute address. He's less fond of press conferences these days, so it was just delivered online. but I think that it will be something he has wanted to do which is namely seize the initiative once more he has performed an act of political jiu-jitsu using opponents' strengths against him and thereafter trying to turn that around to have a fight on which he feels most comfortable namely having a campaign he always feels best on the campaign trail likes going around knocking doors rather than kind of sitting there awaiting judgement absorbing all the body blows from his political opponents so he's done what some of the party were urging him to do to fight, to force this hand, force this contest.

1:59And it now looks like we're going to have truly a by-election for the ages. I think this will be a contest that looks like it will be billed as the soul for the nation. If you thought a lot of doors were knocked in Makefield, you ain't seen nothing yet because this will see Labour, the Conservatives, very much thrown in the kitchen sink at this one, restore, of course, Rupert Lowe's party, and then, of course, many, many thousands of reformers will be keen to go out and campaign for their leader. Well, do you think every party will stand a candidate? Because Labour could very well say, look, this is a waste of money.

2:29You're playing games and I'm not going to have any part of it and actually not a standard candidate at all. They could do that. Yeah. The question, of course, is you've got many different actors in all of this. We could have, for instance, a sort of Halton Price style by-election, which when David Davis resigned over 42 days detention back in 2008, I believe. And I think that you could have that. But overall, you're going to have restore standing. And if restore stands, that basically means you've got two very right wing parties. does Labour really want to leave the field open to them? You've got the Conservatives to be under pressure, some people online hoping for a draft Boris Johnson movement, which really would be all the kind of egos back in the room together.

3:04So, look, I think that the more interesting question perhaps, Noah, is you might well win this by-election, but of course what happens next in terms of the rules? Because you could then have another by-election in terms of the Commissioner saying, hang on, the investigation was only paused, we're going to commence our sort of punishment against you, and then he gets suspended and then gets another recall, and then we could be a second by-election after this. And that, of course, is the element and all fast in all of this potentially. But at that point, Farage will hopefully be thinking, look, I've just won re-election, potentially with 50, 60 percent of the vote.

3:31This is a joke and get the win back in his sails, which is the big thing that's been troubling reform. Someone said to me last week, the train has hit the buffers. It's not yet derailed, but it's struggling to gain momentum. And this is Farage's way of trying to regain that momentum. William, you keep a very close eye on the machinations of right wing parties. What do you make of this move by Farage? Is it strategic, stubborn, perhaps selfish? I think, to put it simply, he's rage quit. I think anybody who saw his appearance on Sky News can tell that Nigel Farage really, really, really dislikes the press intrusion and the recent focus on his finances and sort of private affairs, etc.

4:09And so as a consequence, he's decided to flounce out in Parliament, stage this sort of people versus the establishment by-election and hope to benefit of the back of it. But I think he's made a fundamental strategic mistake and which, as James points out, he's left his future in the hands of others. First of all, as our colleague Talley has pointed out, the opposition parties can actually object to the motion brought forward by reform to actually bring this by-election. Now, I don't think that's ever happened previously, but why do they want to give Nigel Farage a by-election that he can use to try and crowd out the media environment for a month or two and make himself stronger, etc.?

4:39If they chose to object to it, they very much could. And I think they're currently dealing with the parliamentary lawyers to find out if they can. Secondly, as James points out, we can have this by-election Nigel Farage could win, and then we could have a whole other by-election in three or four months' time after the standards of investigation is completed. Now, the people of Clacton might like Nigel Farage very much, but they really enjoy being, pardon my French, dicked around continually by him as a consequence of his own personal affairs. And, yeah, I think it suggests that Farage is becoming increasingly self-indulgent because, you know, as James again points out, this is our third state-of-the-nation by-election in a state of year, you know.

5:12I think we're only, what, six months in. We've already had Gorson Dentsch, we've already had Makerfield. It's all become incredibly wearying. And Nigel Farage, a man who wants to suggest he's broken away from the political establishment, the man who wants to suggest he's an outsider, is actually doing something that is entirely designed to deal with SW1 obsessions. You know, I think actually the voters of Clacton would like him to get on with the job. But now, you know, Labour are going to throw everything at getting him out. Restore are going to throw everything at getting him out. And if indeed, as some people have already suggested, Boris Johnson runs and Clacton against him, then maybe the Tories will do everything they can to get him out.

5:44And I think actually, even if Nigel Farage wins, you know, even if he comes back to Parliament, even if he doesn't face another by-election after this, he is going to be serially weakened. And quite honestly, if he doesn't want to be prime minister, if he doesn't actually like the media intrusion to his life that being the de facto leader of the opposition entails, Nigel Farage should just be honest about that. He should just quit and stand down. because otherwise this sort of half in, half out, oh, I like campaigning, I like everybody saying that I'm the tribune of the people, etc. But I don't actually want the responsibilities of the job, I don't actually want the scrutiny, is a farce and he should just give up.

6:17Now, in the last five minutes, Farage has actually tweeted saying, I've spoken to the CEO of Tendering District Council. Reform has offered to cover the cost of the by-election. I will be writing to Rachel Reeves later today with the same message, given that we asked for this by-election in the first place it's only right that we pay for it James does that financial offer change anything at all or is it just another gimmick and I also wanted to ask your view on the points that William was making about how Farage handles questions from the press so when you become a politician you're no longer a private citizen and you do become fair game for a lot more scrutiny than the average person.

7:03Faraj reeled off a list of grievances during his statement where no press was actually in the room for it. Were these grievances fair or does he just need to suck it up and realise this is how it works? So on the first point, it's clearly a sensible thing to offer to pay for it if you can. That takes a sort of opposition talking point off the table. The second point about grievances, I think as with any politician's grievances you know some are legitimate some are not but it's the famously not powell quote a man who forged himself knew a politician complaining about the scrutiny is a bit like um a ship's captain complaining about the sea you know this is the business we've chosen to quote hyman roth and so i think that some of it is clearly stuff he feels more comfortable talking about the threats to his life which seems to be real and it's again this question about home office security and whether why isn't that being provided properly but again i mean it talking about that is a much more politically sellable message and one people are much more receptive to and sympathetic to than other questions such as the administrative support provided to him in the run-up to the 2024 general election.

8:04So I think that he's obviously trying to refashion the debate. For me, the comparison that jumped to mind was the Chequers speech of 1952. Richard Nixon, that point, not for the first time, not for the last time, was facing difficult questions about donations he'd received. He'd also received as one of the gifts was a little dog called Chequers, And he went on, made a speech to the nation on TV, talking about the little dog he received and he wouldn't give up this little dog. And as a result, the public backlash was so sympathetic to him that Richard Nixon wasn't dropped by Eisenhower from the ticket.

8:32And he, of course, went on to fight the 1960 campaign, lost that, but then became president eight years after that. And I say that because that's what Farage is trying to do here, is trying to refashion the debate on the turf about which he feels most comfortable. Now, some of the points that William has addressed are perfectly fair about sort of his commitments. it is constantly to the chagrin and consternation of some of his closest aides that he continues to do some business ventures, which clearly have very little to do at all with politics. And that he has the cameo story, which then blew up and then he quit cameo, obviously the gold bullion one.

9:03And I think that that is impeding their efforts to try and get to 25, 30 percent, tapping into what might be called the respectable tendency of the middle classes. And we're still voting conservative. So I think that is a legitimate issue. but overall this is who he is you know you get the pros and the cons you know the pros you get an incredible campaigner who doesn't get sort of constrained by the rules the con is that those rules often will keep you grounded in particularity and you may not like you know the system as it is but unfortunately that is what you have to deal with um two further points firstly of course it's interesting to see that he now resigning kind of preempt the system he's presumably looked at what happened to boris johnson in 2023 back then of course johnson commissioned some expensive legal advice from david panick pointed out that much of the privileges committee investigation in that That case was deeply flawed and wouldn't have stood up in a court of law.

9:48But this isn't a court of law. This is a political process, and that should be remembered. So it's interesting he's chosen to jump now rather than sort of weekly a waiter's fate. The second point, of course, is that Farage is one of the disruptors, and the two obvious ones that come to mind are Enoch Powell and Joe Chamberlain, both of whom never became prime minister. And often there's a case of if you choose to kind of make the political weather along the way, you incur wounds, casualties that make it impossible for you to hold the top job. Farage is someone who has made his own political party rather than inherited it.

10:16That does mean you are open to difficult issues around things like donations and gifts. And that may be the irony, isn't it? That if Farage does refashion the two-party political system along the way, what happened in 2024, getting to that point, he left himself open for opponents to take advantage of it and may well stop his ultimate ambition of becoming Prime Minister. On Coffeehouse, you come for the politics and stay for James Heal's unparalleled knowledge of political history. William, how should the Tories play this? Well, I think, as I said Michael and Natalia was suggesting, if the Tories do believe they can combine with Labour and the Lib Dems to actually prevent a by-election being called, and say Nigel Farage ends up with an awful lot of egg on his face, I suggest from a tactical perspective they do that.

10:58I mean, secondly, if they do actually face a by-election in Clacton, obviously in a Clacton seat that was won by Douglas Garswell for UKIP in 2014 after calling a by-election, it was won by Farage, the stonkling majority last time round for reform, you know this is going to be you know pretty much you know on paper the safest reform seats in the country um it was Tory you know up until sort of 2024 but nonetheless you know I think they just have to run a very good local candidate or if not that a very high profile candidate like sort of Boris Johnson although I think he's actually going to run and because they're the person best place to take the sort of wind out of Farage's sails but look this actually confirms a lot of what the Tories have been saying that Farage is self-indulgent that he's more uh focused on the promotion of brand Farage rather than the actual sort of future prospects of the country and that actually you You know, the reformed soap opera is actually so self-destructive, so dodgy and filled with so many characters that one doesn't actually want to be associated with that it's really the Tories who are perhaps not as sexy or perhaps as interesting at the moment, but they are the ones going on in the background doing the serious policy work, writing of Stepping Stones 2.0 and preparing for a future successful right-wing government.

11:59Again, a lot of what's been said recently about the fact that sort of Kemi-Badenhock's personal ratings have ticked up, that reform seem to have sort of hit the buffers, as James put it, that they seem to be in difficulties over various different sort of investigations, etc. Has side obscured the fact that reform had been ticking up in the polls now for a couple of months? You know, the Tories have broadly sort of stayed stable or gone up slightly as well. But nonetheless, like, instead all the focus has been on, you know, growing Tory momentum, growing sort of reform ennui. And it strikes me that if this does prove to be a self-disruptive move by Farage, then that very much plays into Kimi Baden-Ock's hands.

12:31Whether Kimi Baden-Ock is any more up to the job of being Prime Minister than Nigel Farage is a question that I think should ultimately be up to the electorate. The Greens and the Lib Dems are saying they'll both stand. Labour and Conservatives haven't confirmed anything yet. If the Conservatives were not to select the great blonde bombshell Boris Johnson, Giles Whatley might be an obvious candidate, someone who was a reasonably well-liked ex-actor and MP there for a number of years. So that could be one potential candidate. But overall, yeah, I mean, the campaign's the way that reform seeks to get its momentum.

12:58And that's one of the interesting critiques, actually, is that as a project, they're a fairly linear project, which is that they can only take one thing at a time rather than kind of juggling things like the policy development we keep hearing so much about rather than doing multiple things at once. I think that they've had some significant achievements over the past two years. It's not easy to build a political party as we've seen with your party, Change UK, the SDP in the 1980s. But overall, nothing would refuel them more than kind of getting Farage back over the line here. And with that, we will draw this episode to a close, but no doubt a lot to dig into on reform and the potential upcoming by-election in Clacton.

13:32Thank you, James. Thank you, William. and thank you for listening to Coffeehouse Shots.

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