𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The old Nigel Farage is back. That’s the maverick Nigel, the scrapper, the one who sticks two fingers up to the establishment and enjoys a pint afterwards. His decision to resign as an MP and force a by-election in his Clacton constituency wasn’t done on a whim. It’s part of a strategy.

Nigel fears that attempts to become more respectable over the past 12 months haven’t really worked. He wanted to show the world that Reform UK could be a serious party capable of governing the country. That’s why he was so keen to recruit former Conservative MPs, who had experience of being in government. He led press conferences focusing on big policy announcements.

But the result was to make Reform, and Nigel himself, less interesting. It contributed to a sense that the party was losing momentum – even though polls showed that Reform remained well ahead of its rivals.

The old Nigel Farage was different. Back in the day when he was a member of the European Parliament, his speeches were electrifying.

In 2014 he told the EU Commission they were “as stale and musty as a corked bottle of wine”, adding: “I don’t know about some bright new fresh start for Europe, it looks a bit more like the knackers yard for failed domestic politicians.”

In 2011 he stood up and told EU bureaucrats: “None of you have been elected; none of you have any democratic legitimacy for the roles you currently hold.”

These were the days when the EU Commission and a range of other EU bodies had some control over our lives here in the UK. As Mr Farage repeatedly pointed out, nobody elected them.

He would highlight the enormous arrogance of these people in thinking their decisions should overrule those of elected national governments. And he’d do it with wit and spectacular rudeness, which maybe they deserved.

The speeches were shared widely on YouTube, and this is how a lot of people learned about Nigel Farage.

But things changed after the 2024 general election, when Mr Farage began to think the unthinkable – that the Tories were so damaged, the Labour government so useless and Reform so popular that he might actually have a chance of becoming Prime Minister.

He also recognised, however, that even people who were sick of traditional politics might see voting Reform as a gamble. They might like Nigel, but was he actually capable of being Prime Minister? Who would be his Chancellor? Who would be his Home Secretary? He may have strong views on Brexit and immigration, but what did Reform UK know about bus services, neighbourhood policing or the hundreds of other issues a British government has to deal with?

What we’ve seen over the past 18 months or so is an attempt to deal with that weakness – and to make Reform a bit more like the traditional parties.

Now, those days are over. The old Nigel is back. He has portrayed his Clacton by-election as a battle against “the entire political establishment” which he says is trying to bring him down.

And we’ll see more of this in the months to come. For a brief period, Nigel tried to join the establishment. Now he’s back to doing what he does best – kicking them where it hurts.