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 isn’t 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, it’s 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 — 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.

“I certainly don’t have any trust for them or any love for them,” Farage told the Times this week, echoing the “Zero seats” mantra of the young Right that wants to see the party destroyed and reborn in their image. “I want to reshape the centre-right, whatever that means,” he added, noting that the name of his party – Reform – 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.

We’re not far from that outcome, according to this weekend’s 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.

“The 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,” 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 “do you fear the opposition?”, to “would you like to exact revenge on the government?” Now that the electorate does not fear Starmer’s Labour party, the country’s 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 “let’s finish the job” election, no matter how hard Suank tries. This will be a “do you want change” election. Everyone is tired of the Tories — even the Tories. Will Farage go in for the kill?

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James Sean Dickson is an analyst and journalist who Substacks at Himbonomics.

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