Tories shouldn't fear Farage - but what he stands for should give parties sleepless nights - Stephen Pound

An observer may be forgiven for thinking that he veers towards the superhero end of the spectrum as he once walked away from a horrendous plane crash that would surely have killed someone less indestructible.

He has lived a lifestyle based around cigarettes and alcohol yet presents a trim figure and is more than capable of leaving the press pack for dead as he races through the streets and marketplaces of this land.

So, if he is the new Man of Steel then does he present a figure of fear to the Tories?

The point here is that it is not Nigel Farage that sends shivers up what few spines remain on the conservative benches, but it is what he represents, what he stands for.

Sometimes you need someone to symbolise a philosophy, a political ideal.

Margaret Thatcher was a one-woman demonstration of determination and Tony Blair exuded sunny optimism and the scent of spring.

Nigel Farage brings into sharp focus a vast swelling undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the status quo in UK politics and even in far wider society.

Like it or not, it cannot be denied that we live in an increasingly unequal society and it is not just the former coalfield communities who feel abandoned and ignored but vast swathes of the nation who are not seeing a fair return for their efforts, who cannot find the work or the housing that should be the birthright of every Briton.

People of my generation who had to learn reams of poetry by heart will recall Kipling’s description of the man “when he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen eyes set on your own and grumbles 'This isn’t fair dealing' my son leave the Saxon alone”.

People do believe that there isn’t fair dealing and Nigel Farage is the lightning rod for this emotion.

So why should the Tories fear him?

I would respectfully suggest that it isn’t Nigel Farage that they should fear but what he stands for, what he articulates and what he offers to weary and unhappy people.

The Tories could always count on healthy majorities as they would sweep up votes from those for whom the milquetoast meanderings of the limp Liberals and the fairly pale pink, rather than revolutionary red, of the Labour Party, were just too awful to contemplate.

At one point in the late nineteen fifties over 97 per cent of the electorate voted for the three main parties.

Today that figure is plunging south at a dizzying rate.

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We no longer live in the land of fixed tribal political loyalty but in a world of retail politics – pick and mix policies.

The rise of Reform UK owes a very great deal to Nigel Farage’s irrepressible and apparently indestructible personality but there are other minuscule groupuscules springing up like toadstools after rain in the forest.

There may be some personality-led parties – George Galloway’s frequently rebranded mob being an example – but none of them have the momentum or the focus of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

The Tories – and let us not deny it, Labour – may have reason to fear Farage but it is far more important to accept that it is what he stands for that should be keeping the established parties shivering through a sleepless night.

It's too early to talk about Faragism as we one talked of Thatcherism and Blairism, but I feel that the time is coming.

Watch this space!