Divisive Trump’s best friend Nigel Farage is shaking up the British election

Clacton-on-Sea, UK – In a muddy, slow-motion trajectory, the pale yellow milkshake found its mark: Nigel Farage, a far-right political candidate and Donald Trump acolyte, at the inauguration of his insurgent campaign for a seat in the British Parliament.

However, the negative display of anger from Hawaii voters over the banning of one of the country’s most enthusiastically polarizing crowd figures was overshadowed by what had until now been seen as a quiet competition between Britain’s two biggest parties. Was considered in. In a miracle announcement in early June, Farage involved himself as the ruling Conservatives were already projected to lose decisively to the left-leaning Hard Work Party.

Some observers believe the return of Farage, 60 – political flamethrower, a key architect of Brexit, leader of a small, strictly anti-immigration party – could reignite a MAGA-like takeover of the Conservative Party, which has seen a major The situation has played a role in British politics for almost 200 years.

And their high-profile presence re-injects an insistent tone towards the nationalist-populist surge in Western Europe in recent years and past, the full import of which may soon become cloudless.

“He’s good at attracting attention, and he sees himself as a disruptor, someone who wants to overthrow the established order,” said Mark Wickham-Jones, a political science teacher at Bristol College. “There’s not a lot of coherence in his policies, but in terms of his support, it doesn’t really matter.”

Opinion polls suggest Farage’s party, Reform U.O.K., will come nowhere close to victory in Thursday’s general election. But after the ensuing seven defeats, he feels I am on course to win election to Parliament’s 223-year-old constituency, the House of Commons.

Farage, who hails from a village leaf on the outskirts of London, is running his 8th parliamentary race in Clacton-on-Sea, a seaside town full of swinging arcades, closed Storefronts and croaking seagulls can provide this. The air of a distorted funhouse is reflected. (In Britain, parliamentary applicants do not have to be residents of their constituencies.)

“There’s something happening – speed!” Faraz recently instructed a group of enthusiastic, determined supporters at his small local headquarters, perched atop one of the many gaudy relief arcades lining the seaside road.

“It’s like there’s a million conversations going on at once at the breakfast table, in the bingo hall, in the pub – ‘Oh my God, we were just talking about you!'” he said, almost giddy.

In some ways, Clacton is an election venue tailor-made for Farage.

The city and its climactic villages, some of which have rich wallets, are plagued by rampant unemployment and poverty. In the 2016 Brexit referendum, 70% of the constituency voted to leave the EU union. Two years ago, Reform’s predecessor, the UK Liberty Party, or UKIP, won the parliamentary race in Clacton – on the first day.

In a political development that has become common in the US and continental Europe, citizens in Clacton, home to significantly fewer immigrants, are far more vocal than the general society in calling for immigration to be dramatically reduced.

Farage “is able to play on people’s fears,” Wickham-Jones noted, “and anxieties about identity – a sense that society is rapidly changing.” Alternative politicians have struggled to articulate a counternarrative regarding the social benefits of immigration, or a less drastic strategy of curbing it, he said.

The hard-hitting candidate in Clacton is a charismatic 27-year-old named Jovan Owusu-Napoles, who was born in the English city of Nottingham and is of Jamaican and Ghanaian heritage. He has little chance of overtaking Farage, even though some political watchers believe his fast-talking, social-media-heavy marketing campaign style marks him out as someone who will occasionally lead the national Can climb the level.

On Clacton’s Side Road, Pushkar Dhasmala, a 40-year-old immigrant from the Republic of India, said he supported Owusu-Nepal, but knew most of his neighbors did not.

“The care sector is dependent on immigrants,” said Dhasamala, who works in a privately run assisted-living facility. Farage’s rivals, he said, “understood the situation” faced by people newly arrived in Britain and trying to make a home.

Hard Labor’s anticipated dominance in the nationwide parliamentary vote presents an updated pattern of nationalist-populist fortunes elsewhere in Europe. The celebration has been fueled by an outpouring of crowd discontent toward the Conservatives, whose nearly 15 years in power included the pandemic and Britain’s chaotic departure from the EU union formally in 2020.

Over time, the Conservatives imposed harsh austerity measures, destroying Britain’s public sector, including the respected but deeply troubled nationwide state service. The Conservative-held top ministerial post changed hands several times during the struggle to implement Brexit, culminating in the scandal-plagued reign of Boris Johnson, who fell ill in shame in 2022.

Johnson’s successors fared little better: first came the hapless Liz Truss, the shortest-serving leader in modern British history, whose 50-day tenure prompted memes about whether she was like wilted lettuce. Whether or not it would survive the headwinds, and swayed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who cited the latter vote when it was clear Conservative support could fall even further.

The re-emergence of Farage – who entered the parliamentary race having first announced he would no longer run – coincides with sad precedents for mainstream political leaders elsewhere in Western Europe.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron is trying to close the floodgates to the far-right in two rounds of parliamentary voting, set to take place on July 7; Germany’s centrist government faced a harsh rebuke when a far-right party came second in the country’s ECU parliament elections this time.

There has sometimes been an undeniable synchronicity in American and British politics – the narrow kindness of Brexit came just months before Trump’s 2016 presidential victory – and prominent Trump supporters have seen far-right gains in France, Germany, Italy and the US. Felt extremely happy. At other places.

Before that, during and after the former US president’s turn at the administrative center stage, Farage worked hard to establish himself in the Trumpian orbit, even if as a detached satellite.

In a recent interview with Britain’s ITV, Farage declared that Trump had probably “learned a lot” from his own inflammatory, insult-laden speeches in the EU Parliament, where he previously held a seat – but he generously added , that protection went each strategy.

Farage’s sloganeering echoes Trump’s – “Make Britain great again” – and he is happy to describe the rustic in an atmosphere of terminal abatement and the fighters as “boring idiots”.

Trump, for his class, was an avowed fan of Brexit, and his campaign hinged on the same social divisions that energized Farage’s campaign: immigration, economic discontent, and culture wars.

Some political commentators, and Farage himself, have suggested that the voting results could put him in a position to take over the hollowed-out Conservative Party – some have compared it to events around the Atlantic, where Trump’s MAGA movement Has gained control. Republicans established order.

Andrew Blick, teacher of politics and modern history at King’s, said, “After the election, there could be a bid for reformist forces to take over the Conservatives, which could include Farage as a member of parliament.” Is.” School London.

He said, “I don’t know whether it would succeed, but if it did, conservatives would look like Trump-era Republicans.” This would leave the triumphant hard-work celebrated and Keir Starmer, the potentially unheralded Prime Minister, facing far more extremist and intransigent political opposition.

For an entire fanbase that may be unsuspecting on the campaign trail, Farage generates strong negative reactions from much of the political spectrum. He has been criticized for saying that NATO provoked Russia’s conflict towards Ukraine, for grossly misogynistic comments, and for repeatedly expressing latent racist sentiments.

Former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking to the Times of London, quoted Farage as saying, “You don’t have to watch a sheep dog trial to hear a dog whistle.”

As Farage launched his campaign in Clacton, a gentle female bystander, about to be arrested, offered him a milkshake on the steps of The Moon and Starfish, a seaside pub. This was not Farage’s first milkshake in business, and he took to the event with confidence, smiling for the cameras arriving at the occasion with a series of banana milkshakes in hand.

Three weeks on, yet the man who made aggression his political trademark was clearly still harboring a grudge.

“Politics has changed,” he said. “People. toss up Things on you.”

Their divisiveness was evidenced by a Clacton couple who were dining on a fashionable afternoon on the terrace of the pub where the milkshake episode took place.

Paula Bracegirdle, a part-time cook who said she expected to resign soon, had concerns about Farage – “a bit extreme, I think,” she said. However her husband Paul, 60, who works part-time with older people suffering from dementia, described her as telling the truth.

“I think he’s clear in what he says,” he said.

They also disagreed on Brexit: they voted to remain within the EU in 2016. He supported the Reduce marketing campaign, which Farage helped lead, and like Farage, he blamed the Conservatives for not effectively dominating retirement now.

The pair are positive on anything, regardless: Clacton, both said, was more negative than before.