Does Nigel Farage Have the Keys to No 10?

“Led by Nigel Farage, the UK’s far right emerges as the government's main opponent” – is the headline in the current Le Monde on politics in Britain. The article by the paper’s fine London correspondent reflected the latest opinion polls showing Reform ahead of Labour and the Conservatives.

I am sure You Gov is correct that Nigel Farage is ahead of Labour and Tories on current polling. But there is no election in sight for several years and the Labour Prime Minister Starmer has suffered from a largely self-inflicted poor start to his government.

Yet to go from that statement of the obvious to Prime Minister Nigel Farage is a step too far. I have watched Farage closely for 20 years and in person we get on well.

He is an entertainer, a big mouth – a Jean Marie Le Pen or a Jean-Luc Mélenchon (anyone interested in France’s Jeremy Corbyn can read Mélenchon’s vision set out in a book just published by Verso).

In opinion polls, and in his unchallenging BBC appearances on Radio 4’s Today programme or Question Times Farage has always performed well. British voters use by-elections and municipal elections to register a protest vote. In the Runcorn parliamentary by-election and in a few council elections in mainly rural areas ignored by mainstream politicians voters dumped their disappointment at the failure of the Brexit era Tory party to make good any of the promises of the 5 Conservative prime ministers in Downing Street since in the Brexit years.

Labour was also punished for some bizarre political errors committed in the first months of a completely inexperience Labour government. Labourlost two council by-elections in the flagship council and parliamentary seat of Westminister. Labour won control of the Council in 2022 followed by capturing in 2024 the Parliamentary seat which had been created in 1545 and always held by the Tories and their predecessors over the centuries.

Don’t forget seven out of ten voters did not vote for Sir Keir Starmer 10 months ago. The 5-party share-out of votes in Britain’s simple majority system used in single seat constituencies meant that on 33% of the vote Labour has 410 MPs (out of 650)– an enormous parliamentary majority by British standards.

But when voters want to register a protest in what rightly or wrongly are seen as relatively unimportant municipal elections Labour is the first target of all the discontent.

However it does not follow that the main beneficiary of that protest vote more than four years before a parliamentary election that can change government means Nigel Farage is heading for Downing Street.

More important but ignored by the BBC, the Murdoch papers and the overwhelmingly Labour-hostile press was a You Gov poll on 27 May showing there was very poor support for Farage to be prime minister.

You Gov pollsters noted that “44% of Britons said they would prefer Starmer to be prime minister over Farage, that figure falls to 36% when the contest is between Starmer and Badenoch.

“This is not because Badenoch proves a more tempting option than Farage, with the 25% preferring her to Starmer slightly lower than the Reform leader’s 29%, but rather because she does not have the same repellent force to left wing voters that Farage does.

“Those currently intending to vote Lib Dem and Green are 17pts and 15pts respectively more likely to favour Starmer when his opponent is Farage rather than Badenoch, with a similar rate of increase among current Tory voters, as well as a nine-point increase among current Labour voters.”

For good or ill Farage has a sulphurous reputation on anything to do with race, Islam, and the millions of new Britons who have arrived in Britain as in the US, Canada and many European nations to do the work that natives disdained.

Voters will give Farage his headlines in marginal elections of little consequence to their lives but when asked if they prefer Farage as prime minister to the current occupant of No 10, Sir Keir Starmer, or the weak and unimpressive (so far) Tory leader, Kemi Bandenoch, who grew up in Nigeria Farage scores very poorly.

Farage has just 5 MPs in his party out of 650 MPs in the Commons. Starmer has none of the political flair and natural communications ability of a Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair.

Voters like using Farage as a weapon to punish both the current government and its Brexit era predecessors. But as Prime Minister?

Farage is pro-Trump, promoted the Putin line that the West is to blame for Ukraine conflict, and has just proposed tax cuts which make Liz Truss appear moderate and responsible.

Once a week I try and go out to knock on doors of voters where I live in central London to ask about their voting intentions. Labour council candidates are losing at the moment. But I find no one mentioning Farage positively and no one suggesting he has the stature to be prime minister.

There are four years before the next election. A lot can change. Nigel is only 60 years old – but decades of drinking 3-4 pints of beer at midday and a bottle or two of wine and a glass of cognac at dinner takes its toll. He looks as if he has aged 10 years in the last six months . His hair is grey-white, his face is lined. He has to say more and more extravagant things to get media attention. He has made nine trips to the United States in the last 12 month and recently missed a key parliamentary vote as he was on holiday in France.

No-one took any notice of this casual approach to his duties as an elected politician or his generous use of an MEP’s financial and other privileges when he was not in the House of Commons.But with his team’s social media bot type boasting that he is the next PM he is now coming under proper media and investigative scrutiny.

Farage is a phenomenon and should never be undestimated. Yet. Yet. I may be wrong, very wrong but I am not convinced he will be prime minister.