Reform leader Farage's populist policies are gaining ground, but many are unrealistic

[LONDON] Nigel Farage, the controversial leader of Britain's right-wing Reform Party, is set to become the man to ruin the ruling Conservative Party's prospects in the July 4 general election.

Considered by many to be a brilliant self-publicist, the 60-year-old gets significant airtime and column inches in broadcast and print media. Some TikTok statistics indicate that the Reform Party has more views on social media than the Labor Party, the main opposition party likely to form the new government after the election. Britain is broken is the slogan of Farages' campaign. While he openly stated that Labor would certainly win the election, he also stressed the need for a strong opposition. Three separate polls predict Farage will win a parliamentary seat in the seaside town of Clacton, in what will be his eighth attempt to become an MP.

Other polls predict that four other reformist candidates will also win seats. That would be a modest gain, given that several studies estimate the party has support between 15 and 19 percent nationally.

Pollster YouGov predicts the Conservatives will win just 108 of the 650 seats in parliament, the lowest score in the party's long history.

If those dire predictions prove correct, the party will lose 257 MPs compared to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s triumph in 2019. Johnson and other Conservatives, however, say Farage and his supporters will split the vote and deliver a bigger Labour majority. Farage, for his part, hopes his party will reform the political debate on domestic and foreign policy. In recent days, he has been back in force on the airwaves and making headlines in many newspapers.

One of Farage's most radical suggestions is for Ukraine to strike a deal with Russia to end the war. This original suggestion has had no impact on the Reform Party's poll numbers, with Farage saying such a deal would save lives.

In an article published in The telegraphTony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Russia, agreed that the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union should enter into negotiations with Russia. The Reform Party also wants to cut taxes and increase public spending. But critics like the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and Ryan Bourne, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute, warn that the Reform agenda is full of unrealistic promises.

They argue the manifesto is similar to the failed policies of former prime minister Liz Truss, who resigned after just 49 days in office. His unfunded tax and spending promises in the October 2022 budget caused a collapse in UK bonds. Sterling then collapsed to a low of 1.03 against the US dollar, but has since recovered to around 1.27. (Reform) suggests they have radical ideas that can realistically make a positive difference, but what they are proposing is completely unworkable, said IFS director Paul Johnson. Farage hopes reformist policies will influence the Conservative Party when it is in opposition.

Indeed, in a recent debate, Labour leader Keir Starmer claimed that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s recent promises to cut taxes and spending were similar to those of Truss. Sunak countered by saying that Britons would face higher taxes under a Labour-led government. In addition to cutting personal, corporate, property and inheritance taxes, the Reform Party has also put forward a number of other measures that are widely seen as populist.

These include promising to slash immigration rates to the UK, with a proposal to impose a 20 per cent tax on employers for every foreign worker on their payroll.

The party also suggested nationalizing half of the country's energy and water utilities to, in its words, prevent consumers from being gouged.

Other measures include waiving interest on student loans and an overhaul of the UK's military procurement process to reduce corruption and costs.

Petronella Wyatt and Allison Pearson, two prominent columnists of The telegraph, summed up the controversies surrounding Farage. Farage brings out the worst. Perhaps that's because much of his belief is based on fear, Wyatt said. The Conservatives, over the course of their long history, have let down a few bad apples. But that doesn’t mean we should turn to acrimony and populism. Pearson said: I imagine some of you are as sick as I am of hearing that a vote for the Reform Party is a wasted vote. Let me tell you what a wasted vote is. I voted in December 2019 with a song in my heart for the Conservatives. Nothing I voted for happened. With polling day fast approaching, the key question yet to be answered is whether potential Reform MPs will themselves achieve anything remarkable when they are in Parliament, given their likely numbers restricted.