Published by The i Paper (27th August, 2025)
It is remarkable that less than a decade after he inflicted the Brexit disaster on our country – an act of national self-harm that is now bitterly regretted by a sizeable majority of Britons – Nigel Farage is again dominating political debate. Once again, this master of shameless self-promotion is selling his poisonous brand of nationalist populism to a seething electorate that has become utterly fed up with the chronic ineptitude of dismal mainstream politicians in Westminster.
As ever, this egotistical character uses migrants and refugees as scapegoats for wider problems confronting our country in his fight for fame and power, stirring up public fury in sordid collusion with some of the most sinister forces in society. So now – with his latest party enjoying significant lead in opinion polls – Farage is demanding mass deportations of asylum seekers, claiming public fury over illegal migration is a growing threat to public order.
He says a Reform UK government would deport 600,000 asylum seekers over the course of its parliamentary term, including sending women and children back to conflict zones and into the arms of the planet’s most brutal dictatorships.
Never mind that he is the person stoking much of this anger with his stunts, videos and words – aided by the far right, which exploits the migration crisis and inadequate social media controls to spread hatred. Nor indeed, that just one year ago Farage said it was such impossibility to remove all illegal immigrants that this could not even be an ambition for Reform UK. ‘‘It’s pointless even going there,” he said firmly. “We simply can’t do it.”
But of course, this slippery shape-shifter who poses as a straight-talking man of the people has performed more somersaults than a circus trapeze artist over course of his career as he flits around parties and slides across the political spectrum.
It is not hard to pick apart these threadbare policies. Like most Reform UK policies, they look like they were dreamed up over a few pints in the pub and then jotted down on back of a fag packet.
Farage’s latest sidekick Zia Yusuf dissolved into floundering waffle when pressed over where they would build secure deportation centres to hold 24,000 people. This is approaching one third of the numbers held in all 122 English and Welsh prisons. Then he admitted they would hand over cash taken from British taxpayers to some of the world’s most repulsive regimes – a bribe for bloodstained killers, torturers and thugs to take back citizens who have fled their hideous repression.
Farage, typically, brushed aside questions later over the costs, details and practicalities of his policy that lawyers say would be stymied under common law.
He breezily adds that they will disapply international refugee and torture treaties – thus following in footsteps of Vladimir Putin, the “political operator” that he has admitted he most admires for how “he’s managed to take control of running Russia”. Only last week the Kremlin announced it was formally withdrawing from Europe’s convention for the prevention of torture. So is this the sort of company that Farage thinks our fine democracy should seek to keep?
In reality, we witness another display of populist politics at its most performative, as with Farage’s recent crime initiative – pushing a simplistic narrative designed to grab headlines to shore up his phoney image as the man that dares tell the truth.
It is worth noting, however, that when some media reported last week on protests “swelling across hotels housing migrants” there were really only 700 people at seven locations – as pointed out by Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think-tank.
The frustration of voters is understandable when they see rising prices, a stumbling economy, crumbling public services – then face constant demands for more taxes from a self-absorbed political caste that appears so pathetically out of its depth. And yes, illegal migration needs to be tackled firmly, yet humanely, to help restore faith in our tarnished political system – especially if we are to remain a nation that offers some sanctuary to refugees and embraces global talent.
The Tories failed grotesquely, so face possible extinction. Their lacklustre Labour successors adopt a technocratic approach to fixing urgent problems while unsure whether to echo or fight Farage. This confused stance threatens to hand him the next election while splintering the centre-left.
Farage models himself on his real idol Donald Trump, a selfish man corroding and corrupting the United States. This US President has turned his former land of freedom into a hostile environment for millions, a place that drags law-abiding people off the streets and dispatches them into prison hellholes both at home and abroad.
So is this really the direction our own country wants to take: embracing nationalist populism and trampling over human rights to satisfy the power lust of this smirking snake-oil salesman in a sharp blue suit once again?