Within hours of the party he has forged in his own image record its best ever results in local elections, if reports are to be believed, Nigel Farage has demonstrated yet again his complete lack of strategic thinking – which may arrest UKIP’s momentum and cost him essential votes from wavering Labour and Lib Dem supporters.
Having spent the election campaign delivering the message that UKIP offers something to Labour and Lib Dem voters who are unhappy with EU membership and the ongoing net influx of migrants, Farage has perhaps supped a few too many pints while posing for the media and, according to the Daily Wail, informally offered entertained the idea of [edited to reflect observations in comments] an electoral pact and coalition with the Conservatives as long as they drop David Cameron.
In many ways it’s not news because he’s said it before. But in doing so now, just after making a comparatively major advance, Farage has blinked figuratively and shown weakness when he should be portraying strength and confidence. Compounding this political illieracy Farage has also undermined UKIP’s apparent appeal as an entity that stands apart from the discredited three main parties; for instead of occupying the high ground above the political class in the eyes of jaded voters he has instead signalled his desperation to join with them.
What was supposed to be an insurgency designed to break the mould in British politics is now being revealed to those less schooled in the ways of Farage to have an altogether different aim. UKIP candidates who enjoin voters to reject the Lib-Lab-Con will now have to explain why given UKIP’s plan is to cosy up to the Conservatives. As Richard eloquently explained yesterday to the Campaign for an Independent Britain, we are no further forward.
In the final analysis what this means for voters, desperate for a change to the political system and for this country to become democratic, is that real change is not on the agenda. Farage’s objective is to be part of the political equivalent of the Royston Vasey community, which will result in the Lib-Lab-UKIP-Con. Clearly the message to voters is that this league of gentlemen is a local bubble for local politicians and there’s nothing for us ordinary people here.
Autonomous Mind 
To be fair, Farage didn’t confirm that on Andrew Marr this morning (from 26 mins in) and indicated precisely the opposite.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01sfhsj/The_Andrew_Marr_Show_05_05_2013/
I’m no big fan of the chap myself but the Daily Mail, as you’ve indicated yourself before is pro-EU, so it’s no wonder it is trying to undermine a potential threat to itself.
The Election Is 2years away.If EU continues with AUSterity the EURO Will have failed by then. This will cause chaos. Probably the EU will have failed.They are all economically illiterate. So who can predict what the parties will do. One thing for sure Britain is heading for revolution & riots,if Cameron is not stopped.
You really have to stop attacking and associating ‘FARAGE’ with UKIP thinking people. We all know Nigel is a typical Nigel (cunt) but it’s all about the anti European Union principle.
The European Union is not our elected government, so it has no mandate to make or contract with us as individuas,l it has no viability. I have not signed a contract with the European Union.
Give us the quote from Nigel abiut offering a ‘pact’ or’are you just spreading this anti-UKIP lie because it suits your prejudice?
Nigel has not offered a pact. He couldn’t’do so even if he wanted to (which he doesnt). UKIP candidates would stand as independent anti-EU candidates if told to step down, and UKIPers would vote for them…
If there was a referendum, that is when UKIP would have to be at its strongest to promote ‘out’ against LibLabCon promoting ‘in’., so weakening it before we are actualky out would be lunacy – and if Mr Farage was such, UKIP wouldn’t have got tis far.
Mr Perrin, what part of ‘Within hours of the party he has forged in his own image record its best ever results in local elections, if reports are to be believed, Nigel Farage has demonstrated yet again his complete lack of strategic thinking’ did you struggle with?
I’m sure if the blessed Nigel did not say these things to the Mail he will be protesting loudly and demanding a retraction. But seeing as, when asked if he would work with the Tories, he said on the Marr show earlier:
it kind of suggests he is open to the idea. Link to his comment – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10038440/Ukip-leader-Nigel-Farage-Ousting-David-Cameron-and-working-with-Tories-not-my-priority.html
As for describing my comments as prejudice, I suggest you consider the meaning of the word. My views of Farage are not pre-judged, they are based and what I have seen and heard. Nice attempt at trying to smear me just because you feel no one should dare to criticise your sacred hero.
No, it’s another smear campaign by the Tories. UKIP will not negotiate with Europhiles.
If reports are to be believed, Freddie Starr ate someone’s hamster.
Jeez, over-eagerness to attack this individual – often, on the most spurious grounds – comes across as a self-feeding frenzy of unrequited love.
Well done to Mr Farage – he’s had a terrific week.
There must be no accommodation with the Tories for UKIP, othewise they are just as bad as the liblavcon EU bloc.
UKIP, must inform the EU Statists who
permeatedominate the Tory party to ‘do one’.The same attitude must apply to the man who wants….. ‘Turkey, the Levant and Mahgreb in the EU’ and serial womaniser Boris Johnson[ski].
If the Tory MP’s desire to join UKIP, then the must show individual mettle, they must defect and go over to UKIP.
Picking up on the comment that The Boiling Frog makes above, it would seem that, on the face of it, there is an element of unfairness here,.
If we are to criticise then should not said criticism be fair, reasoned and comprise fact based on evidence, not second hand evidence. As The Boiling Frog wrote – and you have confirmed in your response to pperrin – Farage stated that he would look at a pact, not that he would enact a pact.
You are of course entitled to your views and I do not attempt to smear those views. While I was pleased with the progress Ukip made, purely on the basis of the problems it has caused the other three, I have problems where Ukip are concerned, especially with Farage and, especially as they are believers in the status quo where our system of democracy is concerned.
It presents a conundrum when two bloggers who are disparaging of a newspaper for its failure to deal in fact then accept seriously reports concerning Farage. As I said, I am not looking for an argument, nor a spat – I am just a tad bemused.
Whatever Farage said, remember that many people will not read past the headline. AM is right in his criticism. IMO Farage should be wheeling the guns round and going after the Labour vote, and not playing into a Conservative faction’s narrative which wants UKIP to help them with their doomed (I hope) project of saving the Tory Party, nor into the BBC’s version of reality, in which UKIP are “to the right of the Tories”. That is not where their future growth lies, but in continuing the anti-politics, anti-establishment line of attack.
UKIP have the opportunity to reach out into those parts of the country who loathe the Tories. For such people, it is not a matter of policies, but rather a personal hatred. You may as well try to convince an Irishman to vote for the Cromwellian Party.
How wonderfully loyal of you. You fall in alongside your bitter mentor, Richard North, he of the absurdly futile Harrogate Agenda that you patronise, and mock the significant (an utterly appropriate adjective) achievements of Nigel Farrage.
At least the conservative right now has a voice.
As for you – well, by your own protestation you are an autonomous being, ergo you can think for yourself.
Just because North has a personal hatred for Nigel Farrage, born of a long-ago spat, doesn’t meant that you cannot form your own opinion. Try it. It might be refreshing.
John Coles, thanks for your condescending contribution. Clearly the only way you can get your narrow mind around someone holding the view of Farage that I do is to think it has somehow been imprinted on me by someone else you perceive to hold a grudge.
No doubt you hope your quasi-religious devotion to attacking anyone who can see through Farage will result in criticism being muted. I’ve news for you, John, when the media starts using the material they have stored away on the blessed Nigel and you start to notice the evasion, refusal to answer questions and gain an insight into the way he behaves when the cheeky chappie facade is chipped away – which will undermine UKIP and discredit it as a political force – you will wish you had been a bit more free thinking yourself.
Not that it should matter, but for your information my view of Farage was formed long before I ever met Richard North. Richard could make up with Nigel Farage and become best friends with him and endorse UKIP under Farage’s leadership tomorrow, and it would make no difference to my view. The reason being it is the view I have formed over time based on what I have seen for myself.
So instead of building strawmen to knock down in the hope it discredits me, stick to facts instead.
Coles is always good for entertainment, but he is the very last one to talk about personal hatreds. Mention the name Peter Troy and he goes ballistic. But the true measure of Coles is that he never entertains debate. He will always sit on the sidelines and condemn … as “the absurdly futile Harrogate Agenda”, without the wit to understand what he is condemning.
This is a seriously disturbed bunny.
Something being missed in these reflections (or, perhaps, knee-jerk reactions) is that if Farage did enter into a deal with the Tory party it would, by virtue of the change, no longer be the Tory party that its core vote now detest.
Should the UKIP leader set the bar high enough in his demands – say, to enter a general election on a commitment to invoke article 50 if elected to power and to undertake a broad and fundamental constitutional review during office – then the ‘LibLabCon’ would simply have ceased to exist.
If Farage had the sense to make a pact conditional on the Tories invoking Art 50, the whole ball game would change. He would truly be hero of the hour. As it is though, twenty years down the line, Farage still hasn’t come up with a credible exit plan.
We might, then, identify the stumbling block to this game-changer as being an unquestioned assumption of the need for an ‘IN/OUT’ referendum. The universal ambivalence towards this event – either if it should happen, or of its timing – could be understood in two ways: 1) that it is the inappropriate tool for resolving the problem it attempts to address, 2) that the (likely) ‘wrong’ answer will remain totally unacceptable to large numbers of people.
I’m not sure where the idea of an ‘IN/OUT’ question came from, but it arrives weighted heavily in favour of a powerful Westminster/Media machine getting the answer it wants. This is because the question assumes a mutual agreement to grossly caricature representations of what we are voting to be ‘in’ or ‘out’ of. It’s merely setting the stage for the British people to be targeted and overwhelmed with blatant or subliminal advertising and then asked at the end of it which product they prefer to buy.
As the REAL question concerns the legality of the British government’s (current and historical) surrendering of sovereign powers to another body (the EU), we might think that, if there is to be one, a referendum would address this constitutional question alone, and seek the people’s verdict on it. Were it so, no amount of ‘EU: People’s Paradise’ propaganda from the BBC (et. al.) would be a valid contribution to the debate – as it would simply be irrelevant to the question being asked… the EU might well be God’s own Heaven on Earth, flowing with milk and honey – but that does not justify the government surrendering British sovereign power to it without consent. Similarly, it would free up those campaigning to leave the EU from having to waste resources trying to match efforts to convince the public of the benefits of doing so.
The preferred solution is for no referendum at all … but a Tory/UKIP coalition approaching the electorate in two year’s time on the platform that governments HAVE acted illegally and the direct consequence of this action clearly HAS fractured, weakened and destabilised British society. To address and resolve this matter ONCE AND FOR ALL, if elected, the coalition will immediately invoke Article 50. Thereafter, as a fully restored sovereign state, Britain WILL seek a dynamic new relationship with the EU.
That sounds like an irresistible ticket to me. It would be more likely if Farage swept the floor at the European elections and could then approach the Tories carrying 4 million British votes under his belt. But for that to happen, he needs direction and support.
Paul Perrin – about that ‘anti-UKIP lie’ you refer to… In Farage’s own words…
1.
So this means UKIP would not run a candidate, they would simply endorse a Tory.
2.
If that isn’t holding out for a pact then what is? Perhaps you will now wake up to the reality of the Farage project before trying to shout down those who can see Farage and his personal ambitions for what they are.
Augment your creativity with the simple guides that confidential details comes with.