Trump won in 2016 and 2024 essentially by being able to tell lies without a trace of shame better than any Western leader in history. But that doesn’t excuse the men and women around him or the electorate or the far-right media, who have been enthusiastic accomplices in the insanity.
History will eventually need to answer the question of why a man so incredibly unfit for any public office, a failed if wealthy businessman, a known criminal, a reality TV star, and a completely amoral person was ever allowed to wreak such havoc on the most powerful nation on earth.
I suspect the answer will be that voters have somehow become disconnected from and disillusioned with the complexities of the modern world. Too often, they look not for grey politicians with the boring details and difficult-to-implement solutions, but for a new Messiah, an omnipotent superman, to crack the whip and force reality into a corner while cutting down problems like felling giant redwoods. In short, as science has revealed the world in all its complex subtleties, people have become less able to comprehend the difficulties, and many are too stupid to realise their own ignorance. They are then prey to conmen like Trump.
But we are travelling down the same dusty road in this country. Nigel Farage is apparently now in discussions with civil servants in the belief there is a realistic possibility he could be the next prime minister. God help us all if that ever happens.
He is, in my opinion, at bottom just a loud-mouthed racist, the sort you can find in far too many saloon bars after a night on strong ale. Brexit was a result of his lifelong aversion to foreigners, although it was never a solution to the level of immigration, as subsequent events have proven. Quite the reverse. However, that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to furiously push that same button with the connivance of the right-wing media.
How deeply the issue has become entrenched in the British psyche can be seen in a Substack blog by Sam Bright, which delves into some fascinating polling from Portland Communications, a public affairs consultancy, that shows how twisted and poisonous the whole immigration issue has become. Asked to name the top three things the UK government spends money on, and number two, behind health and social care, was funding for immigrants and asylum seekers!
State pensions came in 8th.
He publishes two charts, the second of which is this:
In fact, state pensions in 2023 cost £141 billion, while spending on immigrants and asylum seekers amounted to somewhere between £3 and £4 billion and is barely visible above the bottom axis. Last year, the British government spent £1,285 billion in total, and an item that is no more than a rounding error is seen as the second most expensive in the budget by a majority of people in this country.
The collective ignorance is off the charts.
The levels of immigration may be a problem (I don’t think it is), but it’s not in the top 20 in my view, or even the top 50. And it certainly can't be solved by attacking the poor unfortunates who are simply looking for a better life. Without immigration, we would be much worse off. That doesn’t stop a majority of voters from putting immigration as the number one issue facing this country, according to IPSOS.
“The August 2025 Ipsos Issues Index reveals that immigration remains the biggest issue facing the country this month, in the eyes of the public. Concern has risen eight points since July, with 48% naming it as an important issue.”
Among Reform voters, by the way, that 48% rises to 84%,. They are presumably people who are absolutely terrified of anyone who doesn’t look like them.
Farage is obsessed by 50,000 asylum seekers arriving by small boats, a tiny fraction of the 431,000 immigrants who arrived last year and an even tinier proportion of the 1,236,000 who arrived in 2023. But even with a drop of nearly 800,000, there are still voters who firmly believe the number went UP last year. It is wilful ignorance and a failure of both government and media to counter the narrative. In many cases, the right-wing media doesn’t even try and is happy to peddle misinformation and prey on people’s completely unfounded and irrational fears.
Jonathan Portes, a professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics at King's College, and an acknowledged expert on immigration and integration, frequently forces newspapers to correct inflammatory articles that either misunderstand the figures or deliberately misrepresent them. Yet the writers simply carry their prejudice onto the next falsehood. They don’t ever accept that they were wrong.
Farage has talked about using the Royal Navy to force boats back to France, but as far as I know has never once acknowledged that, pre-2017 and before Brexit, there is not a single documented case of a boat carrying asylum seekers arriving on our shores. Brexit was the catalyst for the very problem he is using to try and gain power.
Now he talks of starting mass deportation, and when asked what this would mean for those refugees who could face mistreatment or torture if returned to the countries from which they have fled, dismissed the problem by saying: "I'm really sorry, but we can't be responsible for everything that happens in the whole of the world."
Don't forget that mass deportation was initially Hitler's solution.
The latest 'policy' is to begin fracking again for oil and gas. The BBC report Richard Tice, the party's deputy leader and energy spokesperson, saying: "We've got potentially hundreds of billions of energy treasure in the form of shale gas. It's grossly financially negligent to a criminal degree to leave that value underground and not to extract it."
The party is now telling energy firms to get ready to "drill, baby, drill" if it ever gets into government after the next general election.
Electing Farage is not a rational choice, but voters are so steeped in ignorance that they are more than happy to see him in Downing Street. If you want to know how this develops, just keep an eye on Trump in the USA.
Farage is simply following in his footsteps.
