Nigel Farage’s bluster is a sign of weakness

It is an irony that a column called “Inside Westminster” should be about Nigel Farage, who has tried seven times to get inside Westminster and never succeeded.

But he is not the outsider he pretends to be. The launch of the Brexit Party’s election campaign took place “here, in this stinking, rotten borough of Westminster”, as Richard Tice, the party chair, put it.

Indeed, Farage’s career has been devoted to trying to use the power of those who feel shut out by the system to obtain a share of the spoils of that system for himself. This week he deployed the biggest pillar of the global establishment, putting the most powerful person on the planet on his radio show.

At the launch event itself, Farage’s approach was a crude piece of inside-Westminster horse-trade politics. He said that if Boris Johnson abandoned his deal with the EU – “which is not Brexit” – he would stand down some of his 500 candidates in the election.

In other words, “Mr Outsider” wants to stitch up the choice of candidates presented to the voters in certain constituencies according to a deal done with the prime minister behind closed doors – in Westminster.

As ever, Farage’s bluster betrays the weakness of his position. I recognise that he has played a huge part in the politics of the last decade. It was partly because of the skill with which he marshalled the legitimate democratic demand of the British people for a say on our membership of the EU that David Cameron was forced to promise a referendum.

And he played a part – from a distance – in propelling Johnson to the Conservative leadership and 10 Downing Street. It was his resprayed Ukip that channelled the popular dismay at Theresa May’s failure to deliver Brexit in March. By coming top in the European parliament elections, the Brexit Party put pressure on the Tories to elect a leader who would promise to do whatever it took to get Britain out of the EU.

But now Johnson is within touching distance of delivering on his promise, the Brexit Party is deprived of a clear message. Everyone assumed that failure to deliver Brexit on Thursday would be damaging to Johnson, and it does not look as if it will be. Everyone knows that the prime minister wants to “get Brexit done” and the reason it hasn’t happened is that parliament dithered and delayed.

So Farage has had to switch from accusing Johnson of failing to deliver Brexit to accusing him of failing to deliver the right kind of Brexit. That is a message that has limited appeal. There may be only 10 per cent of voters who care deeply whether there are customs checks at Stranraer, or whether the European Court of Justice has residual jurisdiction in citizenship cases for eight years, but they are intending to vote for the Brexit Party anyway.

The hard electoral reality is that the Brexit Party is already at an average of 10 per cent in the opinion polls. If it is taking votes away from the Tories, Johnson has a commanding lead despite Farage. If Farage stands candidates everywhere in Great Britain, the Conservatives are heading for a majority of 100 anyway.

That is likely to change, and Johnson would no doubt prefer fewer Brexit Party candidates in seats the Tories are defending or targeting, but it is not as if he needs a pact with Farage to have a chance of winning.

And it is not obvious that a Tory-Brexit Party pact would deliver any net benefit to the prime minister. If a Brexit Party candidate doesn’t stand, more of their votes are likely to go to the Conservatives than to any other party, but not always much more. And a pact with Farage could put off as many Tory voters as it attracts, helping Labour and the Lib Dems to portray Johnson as part of a nationalist axis with the former Ukip leader and Donald Trump.