June 3, 2024 - 1:50pm
The Labour landslide result of the 1997 UK general election was famously described on the night by BBC election analyst Anthony King as like βan asteroid hitting the planet and destroying practically all life on Earth.β
The Chicxulub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago left behind an identifying calling card β a relative abundance of the rare element iridium in the rocks formed at the time, marking the boundary between abundance and extinction. We may come to call the marker at the boundary between Tory life and death βNigel Farageβ.
Farage is the factor that could turn this election from βjustβ a punishing and bruising defeat into a catastrophic wipeout. Labour in ascendancy with a collapse in the Tory vote would be bad enough for the Conservatives, but what they should really fear is losing votes not just to the centre, but to the Right at the same time.
A pincer movement where the party sheds voters to each side of the political spectrum could hand bonus seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats simply by splitting the Right-wing vote, even where their support isnβt particularly strong. We have seen just how effectively a split vote can hand victory to a united opposition in Scotland, which has seen over a decade of SNP dominance despite notional unionist majorities.
Not aiming for a seat may have seen him being called frit, but it leaves Farage free to campaign where he campaigns best: across the whole country in front of the television lens. Far better to conduct an air war by camera than be bogged down canvassing or leafleting for one extra vote in a single constituency.
For Farage, itβs not about the low possibility of winning a single seat. He already has far more influence outside of parliament than nearly all MPs, excepting some senior cabinet ministers and their shadows, and his ambitions are far more grand β nothing short of the destruction of the Conservative Party. When he makes an emergency announcement later today, the future for the Tory party could be telling.
βI certainly donβt have any trust for them or any love for them,β Farage told the Times this week, echoing the βZero seatsβ mantra of the young Right that wants to see the party destroyed and reborn in their image. βI want to reshape the centre-right, whatever that means,β he added, noting that the name of his party β Reform β was a direct reference of its Canadian counterpart that executed exactly the same playbook in 1993, which saw the governing Progressive Conservatives implode from 167 to 2 seats.
Weβre not far from that outcome, according to this weekendβs Electoral Calculus poll, which suggested the Conservatives would drop from 365 to just 66 seats. Right-leaning voters used to fear the Miliband and Corbyn Labour Party, but with Starmer and his team remaining tight-lipped and disciplined, the fear has largely gone. Farage and his bedfellows have run out of patience and are happy to weather a decade of Labour holding the keys to Number 10, in order to effect a Tory takeover.
βThe Canadian Conservatives had become social democrats like our mob here. It took them time, it took them two elections, they became the biggest party on the centre-right. They then absorbed what was left of the Conservative Party into them and rebranded,β Farage said, his intentions crystal clear.
The real danger for the Tories at this election is that the question of who should govern Britain has moved on from βdo you fear the opposition?β, to βwould you like to exact revenge on the government?β Now that the electorate does not fear Starmerβs Labour party, the countryβs Right and Left can unite around the same question.
None of the Tory coalition has been kept onside by policy outcomes from the last 14 years. The Right hates high levels of immigration, the Home Counties liberals hate Brexit, and just about everyone hates the state of public services and the highest taxes since WWII. This is not going to be a βletβs finish the jobβ election, no matter how hard Suank tries. This will be a βdo you want changeβ election. Everyone is tired of the Tories β even the Tories. Will Farage go in for the kill?
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