Fag in mouth, pint in hand, Nigel Farage is ready to ride his Brexit Party to abject failure

He’s back then. Camel-hair coat, fag in mouth, pint in hand, cheeky chappy banter… Nigel Farage, with no hint of irony, is running for another term as a member of the European parliament, and with a brand new vehicle for his ambitions; the straightforwardly named Brexit Party. He wants to turn the elections into a referendum on Brexit.

Good. I want a Final Say referendum. And he’ll lose.

Even combining his new party’s poll ratings with those of the rump Ukip, the combined forces of Leave are unlikely to repeat Ukip’s peak showing at the last European parliament elections in 2014. Those were the dog days of the Cameron-Clegg coalition, when Europe and immigration could be blamed for everything wrong with the country, and Ukip was the most convenient repository for a gigantic protest vote, basically about austerity.

Ukip, it takes an effort to recall, won, ie came first, in that 2014 election under Farage – 27 per cent of the poll, ahead of Ed Miliband’s Labour (24 per cent) and the Tories (23 per cent). It was the first time that a “smaller” party had won a national election in a century. It was a stellar achievement. Credit, in that sense, to Farage, a capable campaigner. But it will not be repeated.

The combined polling for Farage’s Brexit Party and Ukip delivers about 15 to 20 per cent. Even allowing for the proportional nature of the voting system for these elections, in regions with a relatively small number of MEPs they could still split the Leave vote between them. They will also tear chunks out of one another, collectively hurting the Leave cause. Because their differences on policy are minimal, they will be left with personal attacks. There are hints of this even now.

Farage abandoned Ukip and started his own gang apparently because it was turning a bit too nasty and gone a bit “far right” (again, no hint of irony detected from the man behind the “Boiling Point” poster as he uttered that charge). He doesn’t care for Ukip’s “personnel”.

His successor as Ukip leader, an underpowered chap named Gerard Batten, doesn’t care for Farage, as it happens. He hit back on Twitter: “This is a lie. Ukip has a manifesto & policies. Farage’s party is just a vehicle for him. It is not a teal [sic] political party. Its only purpose is to re-elect him. His party is a Tory/Establishment safety valve. Yes there is a difference – our people aren’t self-serving hypocrites”.

And to think they used to be friends.

Farage would like to use his vehicle and his campaign to story up feelings of “betrayal”, turning people against parliament and generally undermining democracy as he does so. It’s all bogus, of course, and I really wonder whether the public has grown a bit tired of the Farage shtick. Are we still fooled by this former banker’s fake “man of the people” routine?

The public have seen and heard it all before, and now they know Brexit was, at best, a false promise. They did vote for Brexit, narrowly, three years ago – and look how it has turned out. It isn’t a “betrayal” to try to make something so fundamentally difficult and complicated work, and find that the results are somewhat disappointing. They are bound to be so. It is like telling the garage to fit square wheels to your car, expecting it to go, and when it doesn’t alleging “treachery” and “betrayal” by the mechanics. If only the fitters had wholeheartedly “believed in square wheels” everything would have been OK.

It is ludicrous. Brexit has simply collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. If Farage himself had been negotiating in Brussels he would not have solved the Irish backstop, achieved a free trade deal with no strings or complications, and left the EU without a big divorce payment. It is a parallel farageiste universe that fewer people wish to believe in now than in 2014 or 2016.

Yes, there is some anger out there – whipped up by the likes of Farage and, more disgracefully, by Theresa May in her bad-tempered “I’m on your side” outburst the other day. But Farage, cynically or not, is merely inflaming it, continuing to sell people an idea of Brexit that doesn’t exist, never has and never will.

He is a proponent of the “stab in the back” approach to politics – your policies don’t work because they have been sabotaged by some mysterious establishment cabal, a “Remain” parliament and a “Remain” prime minister – though the PM has, in fact, negotiated a Brexit withdrawal agreement. She made the best of a bad job.

So I for one will be delighted if Farage turns the European parliament elections into a proxy second referendum, because he will be crushed. The Liberal Democrats will enjoy a much-needed bounce (they were on 7 per cent in 2014, against about 11 per cent now) and the Change UK/Independent Group should also poll well on the basis of Tory weakness and their novelty. Together those two Remain parties could exceed the combined Ukip/Brexit party total.

Even if not, we now have – I hope – a Remain Labour Party, promising, if they have any sense, a proper people’s vote on the terms of Brexit, with none of the usual mealy-mouthed caveats. If Jeremy Corbyn goes into these elections with such a promise he could easily score the best Labour result in a national election since, say, 1966, when they got 48 per cent. Imagine that: Corbyn beating the Conservatives by a margin of two or three to one.

The Tories will be lucky to score double figures this time round – something that really could propel May out of Downing Street. Being beaten by Change UK would surely be a humiliation too far, even for her.

So it is all to play for. I notice there’s been a bit of a surge in young voters going on the electoral register, and, if they turn out to vote in the way they didn’t bother to in the 2016 referendum, these European elections really will be the revenge of the Remainers.

Bring it on.