The main obstacle to Brexit is now the Brexit Party
The result of the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election was predictable and predicted. That won’t stop the various parties and factions from making their partisan points. Some will say that it proves that Boris Johnson doesn’t walk on water. Others will write off Jeremy Corbyn or Nigel Farage. A few will say that Jo Swinson really should have done better.
Here at TheArticle, Olivia Utley will look at the by-election in greater detail later today. For now, only one message has been heard from Wales, loud and clear. The lesson of Brecon is that the main obstacle to Brexit is now the Brexit Party.
Ever since last March, when Britain failed to leave the EU and it became obvious that Theresa May would have to be replaced, the Brexit Party has stepped up its campaign to justify its own existence. A strong showing in the local elections was followed by an even stronger one in the European ones. Buoyed up by these results and generously funded by disgruntled Tory donors, the Brexit Party briefly overtook the other parties in the polls.
Nigel Farage evidently enjoyed his moment of glory — but he did not make the most of it. A wiser leader would have capitalised on his temporary popularity by reorganising the party to make it look less of a one-man-band. Farage failed to do this, just as he had previously failed with UKIP. Incapable of sharing or delegating power, he is not merely the public face of the Brexit Party, but its sole proprietor too.
The result is that as soon as it became clear last month that the Conservatives were now under new management, with a resurrected Vote Leave team and a dynamic new leader in the shape of Boris Johnson, the wind went out of the Brexit Party’s sails. In a matter of weeks, its polling figures have plummeted from a peak of more than 20 per cent to around 10 per cent now — and they are still falling.
Farage’s reaction was to denounce the resurgent Tories as traitors. He claimed that they were now dominated by Dominic Cummings. The former mastermind of Vote Leave, now a senior Downing Street official, had never believed in Brexit, according to Farage, but had always envisaged a “two referendum strategy” as a means to force the EU to concede better membership terms than David Cameron had been able to negotiate.
Farage offers no evidence to back up his inherently implausible claims about Cummings, which were clearly motivated by revenge for the latter’s refusal to concede him a role in the referendum campaign. As the Brexit Party sinks in popularity, however, it still exerts a gravitational pull on the Europhobic fringe of the Tories, who have never trusted Boris. Those who believe in conspiracy theories are convinced that only cosmetic changes to Mrs May’s Withdrawal Deal will be agreed with Brussels. On October 31, they fear, the UK will be left in limbo: an indefinite transitional period of Brexit in name only.
What the Brecon by-election proves is that the Brexit Party can still stop the Tories from winning seats by uniting the Brexit vote. The Liberal Democrats won by uniting the Remain vote, with the Greens and Plaid Cymru standing down in their favour. Unless the Tories can do the same, they cannot hope to force Parliament to accept Brexit by the threat of a general election.
Boris knows all this, of course. He has presumably put out feelers to Farage; in due course, talks may take place in smoke-filled rooms with copious supplies of beer. But Farage is more than likely to overplay his hand. He may be celebrating the result in Brecon, but the Tory revival under Boris shows no sign of losing momentum — and in a general election the Brexit Party would do much worse.
Time is running out for Farage to offer Boris a deal. The outlines of such a pact are not hard to discern: a united front for Brexit on October 31, jobs for Nigel’s boys and girls, and a key role for Farage himself. Some have floated the idea of the Washington embassy, but this might not appeal to the Brexit Party leader. He has come to believe his own propaganda. He sees himself, not as Boris’s emissary to the Trump administration, but as a European-style populist politician in the mould of Matteo Salvini or Victor Orbàn. Not even a Cabinet post, with a seat in the Lords, would tempt Farage.
If this analysis is correct, then the Prime Minister can only neutralise the Brexit Party, not by buying off Farage, but by wooing its supporters and even its candidates. Most of the latter are former Tories and it should be possible for Boris to bring the likes of Annunziata Rees-Mogg back into the fold. (Ann Widdecombe may be a lost cause.)
The most powerful argument for Brexit Party candidates to stay on board is thwarted ambition. If Boris can remove that factor by offering the best of them winnable seats, he can dismember Farage’s monster before it can wreck centre-Right politics in this country forever. Unless the Prime Minister can impress upon his own ultras the danger they face from Farage, he may be the last Tory to occupy Number Ten for a very long time indeed.
