Farage’s hunt for a new cause is not going so well

Not that a man who has changed the course of British history needs any sympathy from the likes of me, but, what with it being Christmas and everything, I’m getting a bit worried about old Nigel Farage.

If you follow him on Twitter, for example, you’ll see that he seems to have an awful lot of time on his hands these days. He spends quite a lot of time wandering the south coast getting angry about refugees and migrants in dinghies.

Sometimes he has taken to the high seas to intercept these boatloads of humanity and their French naval escorts, a cross between Captain Pugwash and Horatio Nelson. He also visits, uninvited, hotels full of refugees apparently just so he can be videoed being asked by hard-pressed hotel staff to go away and leave them alone (he is on private property after all).

Now we have him calling members of the EU “bullies and thugs” for closing their borders with the UK over the new strain of COVID-19 that has become a problem in southeast England. The fact that a man who has been calling for the UK to increase its border protections against the EU for years is now calling others “bullies” for doing the same has not been lost on many. Cue the Twitter anger and jokes.

Perhaps Farage is just getting confused, what with all his other projects online. He is involved in  some sort of non-political venture which he calls “my new crusade to help you achieve financial prosperity”, which is featured on YouTube along with various Partridge-esque “shows” such as Nigel Farage Investigates (sigh) and Farage Live, the highlight of which is an appearance by the Brexit Party’s very own Ann Widdecombe.

Lately he’s taken to making videos with his pet labrador in the local woods complaining about them cutting down trees on the grounds of health and safety, which is fair enough but not quite looking to tear apart the European Union. Other times he just seems satisfied to be photographed sitting in a pub staring at his pint looking all disconsolate,  like his political movement’s just died – which it has.

Now that Brexit has been “done” – or will be, one way or another at the harder end of the spectrum – Farage is basically out of a job. Perhaps that is why he is looking to stir the pot again. He is, strange to say, actually one of the losers from Brexit. He can cry betrayal at whatever Boris Johnson ends up with, but the public are on the whole bored with it and had enough of the argument. They have no great wish to start Brexit all over again with Nigel running it. He’s at a very loose end. As the old boy might put it, he’s got bugger all to do and all the time in the world to do it.

Farage is a rebel looking for a new cause, and it’s not going so well. His application to rebrand the Brexit Party as the Reform Party is, he claims, being held up by the Election Commissioners (can’t imagine why, can you?) As for the new Reform Party’s chosen causes, well, some seem improbable.

Campaigning to get students a lockdown rebate on their fees would be great if only they weren’t nearly all bitterly disappointed Remainers who hate his guts. Taking a broader stand against lockdowns is more promising, except that by the time the next round of elections arrive in May the vaccination programme should be well underway and most of the lockdowns will likely be in the past.

Even with all his undoubted talents, and indeed “achievements”, the sadness of Farage is that he is never going to be elected to the House of Commons and will never hold national power now that sovereignty has supposedly been restored.