Farage’s party has been talking to Truss — a big mistake

He has sensed an opportunity for Reform. Having picked up the support of a large number of former Conservative voters who felt betrayed by the last government, especially over immigration, he was well placed to recruit former Labour voters, who have been unimpressed by the new government’s delivery of “change”. Hence the astute outflanking of the government on the traditional left, calling for the renationalisation of British Steel before Keir Starmer was forced into it last weekend. Hence, too, Farage’s refusal to criticise Unite, the union on strike in Birmingham, knowing that many working-class former Labour voters might have some sympathy with the low-paid bin workers.

Nor was it a coincidence that the place where Farage refused to say anything hostile about trade unions was at a rally in Newton Aycliffe, in Tony Blair’s old constituency of Sedgefield. Those working-class voters in the North East who put New Labour in power, then turned to Boris Johnson in 2019, some of whom reluctantly returned to Labour last year, are now in Farage’s sights. That sight line is reciprocated. Something else that was interesting about that Newton Aycliffe rally was that it was attended by someone “close to and trusted by” the prime minister, according to Patrick Maguire, chronicler of Starmer’s government. Labour sees Reform as its main opponent between now and the next election, given that the voters have decided that the Tories need to serve a long sentence in the sin bin before they can be taken seriously again. Where Farage sees an opportunity, Starmer and Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, see a threat.

That is why Labour has been hitting Reform hard with the charge that Farage wants to demolish the NHS. And it is why Reform has hit back with a promise that “the NHS will always be free at the point of delivery under a Reform government”. Labour is justified in pointing out that, as recently as in the TV debates in last year’s election campaign, Farage was advocating a French-style social insurance system of healthcare — but Farage is entitled to change his mind, and Reform is entitled to try to shut down the issue, knowing how unpopular any move away from the founding principles of the NHS would be with lower-income voters. Farage has been trying to shut down other unhelpful associations with his personal brand. He doesn’t boast about his closeness to Donald Trump as much as he used to, and he avoids going on about how Nato “provoked” Vladimir Putin into going to war in Ukraine.

He knows that being seen as pro-Trump and pro-Putin is unhelpful to him, so why on earth does he think that being pro-Truss is a good idea? I assume that the news of the contact between Reform and Truss did not come from Farage’s side. But even so, Farage should not have allowed anyone associated with him to have anything to do with her. The Times quoted a “source” as saying: “It’s not just a case of thinking about policy, it’s about working through delivery in the face of institutional resistance.” This is comical. How did Truss as prime minister “deliver” in the face of institutional resistance? Her government collapsed because the markets thought unfunded tax cuts were unsustainable. The only good thing she did was to give up about as promptly as she could.

The Times reported that she had “given advice on how to engineer a major overhaul of the state” and commented that this was “a sign of how seriously Farage takes the prospect of power”. If Farage takes power seriously, he should know that the only useful lesson he could learn from her is: do not do what she did. If she applies to join Reform, she should be turned away. He already has enough negatives to play down, and does not need another one. It is true that he faces a great opportunity, with Labour and the Conservatives both unpopular at the same time, but the voters he is trying to win over think of Truss as the one who pursued policies that made no sense, crashing the economy and putting up mortgage rates, and who was outlasted by a lettuce.