Politics

Why the Farage-Johnson pact presents a huge opportunity for Remainers

The question is whether moderates can capitalise on it

November 12, 2019
Photo: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/PA Images
Photo: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/PA Images

Nigel Farage’s announcement on Monday about the Brexit Party’s withdrawal from 317 Tory-held seats was, on the face of it, very good news for Boris Johnson. In those seats (and potentially more) there will now only be one mainstream Leave-supporting party, whereas before there were two. By contrast, in some seats there could be three or four candidates from mainstream parties supporting a referendum or revocation, splitting the votes of Remainers.

But politics is also full of unintended consequences. Farage's move could prove the Christmas gift Remainers needed.

First, let us be clear. The announcement was bad news for Farage. Never mind the peerage he says he was offered and turned down: his credibility has been shattered. He took the fight to Johnson, demanding the prime minister scrap his withdrawal agreement, failed to secure that demand, and capitulated anyway. As recently as Friday, Farage tweeted that Johnson’s deal “will not stand up to scrutiny.” As Johnson’s predecessor might have said: nothing has changed. Farage is now effectively backing Johnson’s deal, and will share the blame for it when Brexit is inevitably exposed and falls apart.

The announcement was bad news, too, for the most committed Leave voters. Until a few months ago around a quarter of the electorate wanted no deal at all. Millions of voters hate Johnson’s deal or want no deal, and are fuming about the new economic barriers inside the UK and the broken do-or-die pledge to leave on 31st October. Farage had the chance to claim them. Now he has left them homeless. Even one of his own MEPs has complained that she will have nobody to vote for on 12th December.

Many pundits have speculated that Farage’s tacit endorsement of the Brexit deal will in fact reassure Leave voters about voting Conservative—an important boost for the party that has effectively become the Brexit Party anyway.

So far, so good for the Tories. Where, then, does this story become good for Remain? In fact the announcement presents a huge opportunity for Labour and the Lib Dems, if they choose to capitalise on it.

First, the Brexit Party is definitely standing in hundreds of Labour and Lib Dem seats. In those seats voters will already have more than one choice of Remain candidate. Now they will have a choice of Brexiter too. In many constituencies in the north and Midlands, Labour scraped through in 2017 by just a few hundred votes. A handful of percentage points for Farage’s party could allow Labour to win again, even on a squeezed Labour vote.

Second, the political optics could prove devastating for any moderate Tory vision. This is the alliance that Donald Trump explicitly called for. It is now much harder for the Conservatives to resist the message that a vote for Johnson is a vote both for Farage and the US President. Trump is no mere bogeyman of left-wing nightmares, but a figure looming in our post-Brexit future who inspires genuine fear and disgust. The slogan “Vote Johnson, get Trump” and the images of Johnson in the pocket of both men could cut through with voters. (The latter image directly echoes the Tories’ 2015 adverts with Ed Miliband in the pocket of then-SNP leader Alex Salmond, which caused that Labour campaign so much damage.) Jeremy Corbyn has already denounced the “Trump alliance” as “Thatcherism on steroids”—not a great vote-winner in ex-industrial Leave-voting constituencies.

The pact also re-toxifies the Tory party more generally. Farage is the author of the “Breaking Point” poster from 2016, who has decried the “Jewish lobby,” foreign-born people with HIV and people speaking other languages on public transport. He has enthusiastically backed far-right candidates around the world. The fact he has now stood aside for the Conservative Party may tell voters all they need to know. Indeed, the notion of a Johnson-Farage pact may not simply put off left-wing Leave voters, but galvanise disaffected moderates and centrists to unite against the new perceived threat.

Finally, we must look to Farage’s justification for accepting Johnson’s deal. In his speech on Monday the Brexit Party leader declared himself satisfied that the prime minister would secure a “Canada Plus” deal and take us out of the EU’s instruments by December 2020, no ifs or buts. (A pledge which sounds achingly familiar to those of us still able to remember the language about 31st October.) But there is no such thing as “Canada Plus.” Any additional benefits the EU gives to the UK it must also give to Canada under the “most favoured nation” clause in Canada’s CETA agreement. Meanwhile the trade deal cannot replicate the single market or customs union unless the UK formally rejoins them. That means substantial new barriers to both goods and services, which would also require border checks across the Channel and necessitate much of the disruption associated with no deal.

In addition to all this, it is important to remember the pledge to leave the transition period in December 2020. It has taken us three and a half years simply to negotiate a withdrawal agreement. A complex and ambitious trade deal cannot be done in 12 months. The CETA deal took seven years, and there were still some tariffs left in place at the end of it. If the UK does not seek to extend the transition, we will revert to WTO trading terms in one year’s time. Johnson is, not for the first time, promoting his own slice of cakeism: a deal for the moderates and no-deal for the hardliners. Only one of them can be true.

It is still too early to say how Farage’s submission will translate into poll numbers. Thirty days remain until election day and many more unexpected interventions will come before then. But one thing is clear: Farage and Johnson are now owning this Brexit deal together.

Next month millions of voters will encounter a de facto Leave alliance. The real question then falls to the Remainers. What a pity it will be if, on 13th December, we are asking why Labour and the Lib Dems did not care as much about stopping Brexit as the Tories and Brexit Party did about turbocharging it.