Farage Factor. A European Parliament Election with potentially enormous consequences

A man with a French surname, an estranged German wife, who has made most of his living for the past 20 years out of employment in Brussels, appears set to ‘win’ the second UK European Parliament election in a row but as the leader of a different anti-EU political party.
To add to this, the party concerned did not exist a mere six weeks ago. Yet, unless the latest polls are totally mistaken (an increasing possibility in this country) or there is a huge shift in public opinion in the next eight days, The Brexit Party is poised to take the largest number of the 73 seats available. It might then be able to exploit that momentum either to win in a parliamentary by-election in the staunchly pro-Leave constituency of Peterborough on 6 June or, at a minimum, do well enough to ensure that the Conservatives do not prevail in an ultra-marginal seat where the manner of the previous MP’s departure (sent to prison for lying over a speeding offence, refusing to resign, in the end forced out via the first successful recall petition on a Member of Parliament) would have been enough to sink the Labour candidate irrespective of whatever their redeeming features may be.
This is surreal stuff. Nigel Farage appears to have politically regenerated more often than Doctor Who. Although he has fallen short on seven occasions to be elected to the House of Commons he has had a huge gravitational pull on British politics over the past decade or so and may be about to have an even more devastating impact this time. A really strong showing by The Brexit Party over the next three weeks could knock all the established parties sideways, albeit in diverse and distinct ways.
The Farage Factor might become the story of the summer. It will, though, be a complicated one.
Conservatives
A forceful performance by The Brexit Party could either prove to be a blessing in disguise for the Conservative Party or the prelude to a truly savage destructive civil war over the Brexit question.
The ‘blessing in disguise’ possibility should not be discounted. In this scenario, the Conservatives would be so rattled by their defeats in the European Parliament and Peterborough that they drop their dialogue with Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party in favour of another attempt at an internal settlement on leaving the EU based on their own MPs, the DUP, alongside a slightly larger contingent of Labour MPs from pro-Leave territory than they have previously been able to recruit to their cause.
The means would be bringing back the Withdrawal Agreement (minus the Political Declaration) but effectively subsumed within the Withdrawal Bill required to incorporate its provisions into domestic law. This compendium would include those elements of the overture to Labour that have been less hated within the wider Conservative world (stronger assurances on employment rights, the environment and consumer protection) and an enhanced role for Parliament in ‘stage two’ of Brexit, plus, as an informal appendage, a cast-iron promise from the Prime Minister that she would announce her resignation within days of it being backed by the House of Commons.
In such circumstances, the objective would be for the House finally to embrace the Withdrawal Agreement by mid-June, the European Parliament to also endorse it once it is reconstituted in early July and for the UK to be out of the EU constitutionally and politically on 1 August with a new Prime Minister having taken up residence in 10 Downing Street a few days earlier after a leadership contest that had focused on what the approach to the ‘end state’ for the UK and the EU should be, not the first phase of it.
That is the best case scenario for the Government. The worst case is that they cannot achieve the above and that Theresa May is forced out having failed to deliver any form of Brexit whatsoever. The leadership competition would then not be exclusively about ‘stage two’ but mostly about how to find a ‘stage one’ with the ‘Faragification’ of the mass Conservative Party having reached a point that the electorally optimal stance for ambitious candidates would be to tack towards a managed no-deal, even though this would trigger more defections from the Remain wing of the parliamentary party, rupture relations with the bulk of the business community, be impossible to push through the House of Commons on its current numbers and make an election or a second referendum far more likely.
Labour
In the short-term, a storming result for the Brexit Party is a bonus for Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. The Conservative Party’s anguish over the means of departing from the EU as set out above would intensify. The media spotlight would move away from the factionalism and feuds within Labour.
In the more medium-term, however, the Farage Factor would adversely affect Labour as well. It would harden the divisions between those in the leadership whose assessment of the European Parliament elections was that it proved the leadership were right not to allow themselves to be painted as de facto Remainers or secret supporters of the second referendum, and those who would draw precisely the opposite conclusion, namely that Labour’s reluctance to make the case for another plebiscite or articulate any enthusiasm for staying in the EU allowed The Brexit Party a free run at the electorate in optimal conditions for it.
The wide gap between Mr Corbyn and his Deputy Tom Watson would start to resemble that of the Grand Canyon. The party conference that will be held in Brighton in September would see an epic clash as the Remain/second referendum fraternity aimed to recast Labour’s policy towards Brexit in their preferred terms while the core Corbyn team sought to defend the status quo. It would be really gruesome and, when the prospect of MPs being deselected by the hard left is thrown in, would probably trigger more defections from Labour.
Everyone else
You have to hand Mr Farage his due, he is capable of having an impact on parties that utterly hate him. It is highly likely that the outcome of the European Parliament elections will be that while the hard-core, pro-Leave vote largely attaches itself to The Brexit Party, their equivalent on the staunch pro-Remain side divides itself up between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Change UK (or whatever its name is on any particular day), the Greens, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP.
It might even be true that if one were to add up all the non-Labour, unambiguously pro-second referendum parties that they would reach a number higher than the tally for the Conservative Party, perhaps Labour too and possibly even The Brexit Party itself. But because (outside of Northern Ireland) the UK has a closed party list system for the European Parliament - in which an elector makes one choice and has no capacity to transfer their preference thereafter, with seats ultimately being decided for them by the d’Hondt method (do not ask, do yourself a favour on this one) - this split undermines the Remain camp fatally, just as they will probably cut themselves to shreds in the Peterborough by-election as a first-past-the-post (technically Single Plurality) electoral system also does them no favours at all. The Farage Factor in this instance would be to compel at least the Liberal Democrats and Change UK, but quite conceivably the Greens as well, to start a form of serious dialogue about an electoral pact of some kind for any general election, with (conceptually) a non-aggression accord including the SNP and Plaid Cymru as well.
This would be exceptionally difficult to negotiate, but as the sole alternative - destroying themselves and any chance of keeping the UK in the EU in the process - would be so dire, making a limited deal in which each of the parties stood down for one another in those seats where one of them was plainly best positioned to win would be a priority for the next leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Paradoxically, The Brexit Party might not even need to stand candidates in such a general election. By then it may well have managed to bundle the UK out of the EU (even if publicly it condemns the terms on which this has occurred) and skewed the debate as to the final end state in its direction. Like the (very different) SDP before it, it will be a political ‘failure’ with a disproportionate impact.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA