Could Nigel Farage really end up leading the Tory party?

Former Conservative chancellor and election strategist George Osborne is the latest – and most authoritative – figure to suggest that Nigel Farage could become Tory leader.

“He’s a sort of Pied Piper character and is leading the Tory party to his merry tune – again,” said Osborne. “You’d have thought they would have learnt their lesson.

“If Nigel Farage was given membership of the Conservative Party... then you have opened the door to Farageism inside the Tory party, not led by his proxies but by Farage himself.”

Earlier this week, Jacob Rees-Mogg said Farage had always been a Tory at heart, and suggested that the party should “roll out the red carpet” if he ever wanted to rejoin.

By contrast, the party chair, Greg Hands, seems less keen on the idea. David Cameron famously called Ukip a party of “fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists”; some might say that’s true of the Tory membership these days.

Obviously, Farage is an unconventional, unpredictable, dangerous, divisive and destructive figure, and having him lead the party is a gamble that could either destroy or save the Conservatives.

No, even though many Tory members would welcome it. First of all, he can’t even be a member of the Conservative Party, because the party rules state: “Membership of the Conservative Party is not compatible with membership of, or association with, any other registered political party.” Farage is currently the majority shareholder and president of Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party, which is a registered rival organisation.

Even if Farage jettisoned his past allegiance and betrayed his old associates, he would then need to be selected for one of a shrinking number of winnable seats. He’d need Conservative HQ approval, and to find a way around a condition for being a Tory MP that states that a person should not have “engaged or engage in conduct which brings or is likely to bring the party into disrepute”.

If he did get elected at the general election, he’d be a potential contender to succeed Rishi Sunak and become leader of the opposition – a sobering thought. However, in order to win the leadership, he’d have to win enough support among MPs to get onto the ballot that goes to the Farageist Tory membership. With Penny Mordaunt, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch certainly in contention, and possibly Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, too, he’d find that a struggle.

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Yes, though he’d be very likely to be a fractious and impatient sort of colleague. Like some others, he’s not a natural team player, and prefers absolute power to compromise. Basically, he’d cause trouble and in due course split the party.

It’s possible, but the Tories were always wary of doing deals with Farage and Ukip in the past. Indeed, when Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings were creating the Vote Leave campaign in 2016, they were adamant that this off-putting, polarising extremist could have nothing to do with their “respectable” operation. He was cold-shouldered and left to run his “bad boys of Brexit” guerilla activities. Unlike so many others, Farage was never given any recognition by the Tories for his role, let alone a peerage.

Besides, Farage and his present vehicle, Reform UK, would always be the junior partner in any alliance with the Tories, and thus simply absorbed and neutralised.

Sunak has not ruled out Farage returning to the Tory fold (Farage was a member way back in the Thatcher era) because the party is “a broad church”. Other colleagues might resent the way that Farage played such a role in driving the party to the margins of power, and the shift of the party to the hard right. As with Enoch Powell, a similarly awkward, rebellious figure who was popular with the grassroots but distrusted by the leadership, there’s perhaps been too much bad blood for a reconciliation.

He would complete the journey to the extreme, fascistic hard right. Considering his past record, given a free hand he’d probably advocate, among other things, tearing up the existing EU Brexit treaty and implementing a hard border on the island of Ireland, plus more barriers to trade across the Channel; leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, and the World Health Organisation; “stopping the boats” through naval action and force, possibly towing them back to France; partly replacing the NHS with an insurance-based system; substantially reducing personal and corporate taxation; cutting social security; abolishing the Electoral Commission, the BBC and Channel 4; a more nationalistic and protectionist attitude to “strategic industries”; making friends with Vladimir Putin; a belligerent attitude to China; scrapping equalities laws and outlawing “multiculturalism” and “wokery”; further suppression of the franchise; politicising the civil service and the judiciary; making strikes virtually illegal; neutering the King; and, of course, imposing a virtual block on any immigration, legal or otherwise.

Heady stuff.

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This is the “kill or cure” question for the party. So extreme a figure is Farage that any leadership role would probably lead to defections by moderate MPs, members and voters. His policies, language, and generally aggressive demeanour would damage society, and likely repulse many people, who’d find his Thatcherite/Powellite blend of policy prescriptions frankly terrifying.

On the other hand, a few years of sluggish growth and stagnant living standards under a Starmer government might persuade some people that a more radical approach is required. Farage suffers from his strong association with the failed Brexit experiment, but he’s adept at promising people impossible things that can never be delivered. Like all demagogues, he has a talent for creating a following based on grievances.

So either outcome is quite possible: a Farage leadership that finally takes the Tories to a historic split and electoral oblivion; or a landslide at the election after next.

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In the past, he’s pledged to crush the Tory party, and more recently quipped that he couldn’t join them because he doesn’t know what the Conservatives stand for. This week, though, he seems to have enjoyed the warm welcome he received from the members at the Manchester conference whose views are indistinguishable from those of Ukip/the Brexit Party/Reform UK, and of course, many have defected in both directions. He says he was “overwhelmed” and “gobsmacked” by the reception. Activities included nodding sagely through a speech by Truss, and boogieing on down with Priti Patel.

The present reading seems to be that a Farage insurgency isn’t going to happen. His stance is that, even with its recent lurch to the right, he would not join the Conservative Party “as it currently is” – but “Never say never. If after the next election they reset and realign, then I might.”

Privately, one old mate of Farage is trying to cool the excitement: “There is no way he would ever join the Tories after the way they have treated him. He just enjoys winding them up.”

Politically, Farage has already succeeded in pushing the Tories far to the right from his position outside the party, securing first the Brexit referendum and now an even harsher attitude towards migration, human rights, and a tolerant, pluralistic society. He’s therefore had vastly more influence than most Tory cabinet ministers, for good or for ill. Why change a winning strategy?