Farage bombshell: Sunak's worst nightmare comes true
Nigel Farage is here to prepare the ground for reimagining the Right-wing in British politics, writes Jonathan Saxty.
Rishi Sunak's worst nightmare has surely come true.
The will-he-won't-he saga is finally over, and now Nigel Farage is back, not only standing as a parliamentary candidate but taking over as leader of the insurgent Reform UK, currently Britain's third largest party in terms of support.
Pollsters warned for weeks this is the worst case scenario for the Tories - Farage coming back will split the "Centre-Right vote" further still. It could be the difference between a general election defeat and total electoral annihilation for the beleaguered Conservatives.
Farage's bombshell comes off the back of a projection by YouGov which finds Labour set for a whopping 194-seat majority, with Sir Keir Starmer's party on 422 seats (up 222), with the Tories on 140 (-232). 326 seats are needed to win.
Make that 139!
The seat Farage is contesting - Clacton - leans Conservative in this projection. Farage as candidate means Clacton will almost certainly go for Labour (with Reform having peeled more votes away from the Tories) or will witness a stunning Farage victory.
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This is the point of the Farage comeback: not to win seats necessarily - which currently in Britain's first past the post system is incredibly difficult for a party like Reform UK - but to prepare the ground for a reimagining Right-wing in British politics, perhaps with Reform launching a Canadian-style takeover of the established Conservative Party.
Farage knows the Tories cannot be rewarded for their total failures of the last 14 years, and only with extreme pressure in the form of a Farage-led Reform UK breathing down its neck can there be any opportunity to smash the current Conservative Party to pieces in order for some sort of phoenix to rise from the ashes.
With neither the Conservatives nor Labour capturing imaginations, Farage's candidacy is set to breathe new life into the dullest campaign ever, with the former UKIP leader's name recognition now the mother of all threats to an already weakened Conservative government.
With reporters desperate for something to talk about in this miserable and uninspiring election, Farage knows his media coverage will be greater than ever, and without so much as a fag paper between the main two parties, he knows Reform UK has a chance to offer genuinely radical solutions.
Those who warn this will be even more likely to lead to a Labour government miss the point: this is the point!
Farage as leader is more than anything designed to lead to electoral annihilation for the Blairite tribute act which is this current Conservative Party in order to allow for a new brand of Farageist conservatism to emerge in its place.
What the establishment finds most distasteful about Farage is exactly what many ordinary British people find appealing: his willingness to say the unsayable and his recognition that Britain is heading towards a cultural and economic cliff edge.
When Farage said he would not stand, Tory HQ breathed a sign of relief. That will now be turning to a gulp! With Mr Brexit back at the helm, the Tories electoral chances just went from hopeless to apocalyptic.
