This scenario might be fanciful, but in recent British history, fanciful things have happened
September 25, 2024 7:00 am
Over the last decade, Britain has got used to the unexpected happening. People are now more ready to believe that scenarios which would once have seemed impossible could really occur.
It was in that context that I was asked a question on Saturday, in an interview at the end of a talk on my new book (The Dictators, since you ask), at the excellent Budleigh Salterton literary festival: did I think Nigel Farage could become prime minister after the next election?
It was a question I had not been asked before and never seriously considered. And nor, I suspect, have you. But you should, and this is why.
Back in 1990 John Biffen, the Cabinet minister who Margaret Thatcher had sacked in 1987 for being a “semi-detached” member of her government, described her sudden defenestration by saying: “You know those maps on the Paris Metro that light up when you press a button to go from A to B? Well, it was like that. Someone pressed a button and all the connections lit up.”
If a certain set of circumstances came together, it is possible, rather than probable, that Nigel Farage could replace Keir Starmer as prime minister of this country. I give it less than a 10 per cent chance, but hear me out.
Although seemingly impregnable, the Labour majority of 170 is far from safe. It has to be remembered that they achieved it with a mere 34 per cent vote share. Had it not been for Reform UK eating into the Conservative vote all over the country, it could well have been a low double figure majority.
So imagine this. The Tories pick the wrong leader and embark on another four years of internal infighting and introspection. Imagine if the new leader proves incapable of taking the fight to Keir Starmer in Parliament, and fails to be a leader of an opposition worthy of the name.
Imagine if the Tories lose council seats at every election over the next four years. Imagine they continue to tank in the opinion polls. Imagine they changed leader again, but nothing changed. So they did it again.
Keir Starmer’s mantra during the election and since has revolved around one word – “change”. But within 80 days of the election, the electorate is beginning to wonder if Starmer is the real deal after all. “Frockgate” and the internal rows about Sue Gray may appear to be Westminster bubble issues, but the war over Sir Keir and Lady Starmer’s clothes appears to have cut through. “Same old Tories, except they’re Labour,” one voter said to me the other day.
Imagine if over the next four years Starmer fails to deliver on any of his major election promises. The NHS proves unreformable. Waiting lists stay stubbornly high. People still can’t get a GP appointment when they want one. School standards fall. Teachers continue to desert the profession. Inflation rises again. Unemployment starts to creep up. Starmer signs a new agreement with the EU but the perception is he has given too much away. Net Zero targets prove unachievable. Energy bills rise as a direct result of Ed Miliband’s green policies.
And above all, economic growth remains lower than expected, partly because of a series of swingeing tax increases imposed on business. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is forced to break her pledge not to increase taxes for working people. The numbers of people coming over the Channel on small boats increases each year. The pensions triple lock has to be broken, and speculation increases that Britain will need an IMF bailout.
All of this is fanciful, perhaps. As I say, right now I don’t think it has more than a one-in-10 chance of happening. The Conservatives may choose an effective leader. Labour may make good on its election promises. But who knows what events may come to buffet the country and its economy?
And who is there, waiting in the wings to benefit from the disasters and chaos? Why, the canniest of political operators, one Nigel Farage.
The Reform UK leader has already decided his priority is now to attract disillusioned Labour voters, and inevitably there will be shoals of them for him to hook. His anti-politics rhetoric will become ever more shrill. “The two old parties have both failed you,” he will exhort. “I am the change which Starmer failed to be.”
Will it happen like this? Almost certainly not. Our first-past-the-post parliamentary system makes insurgency difficult, for one thing. It is more plausible that in the case of a hung parliament Farage and Reform could become power brokers as the DUP did under Theresa May. Or, of course, Reform could find that it has already passed its zenith.
But if it does indeed happen like this, you read it here first.
Iain Dale’s new book The Dictators is published by Hodder & Stoughton
