Local elections / Nigel Farage has inherited Boris Johnson’s Red Wall problem |
The thing about white working-class voters, as Boris Johnson discovered in 2019 and Nigel Farage is finding out now, is that there are a lot of them. They way outnumber the other voting blocs who often grab more attention, such as students, middle class muesli munchers, Muslims and so on. Tap into the white working class and you enter a fast track to power.
But having won over such voters, Farage now has the same problem as Johnson had in 2019. His voters have an expectation of high public spending, at a time when fiscal reality is demanding a sharp contraction in the size of the state.
On many issues Farage and those surrounding him see absolutely eye to eye with his voters. On migration, patriotism, Brexit, net zero, woke nonsense they will have no trouble in devising policies which hit the button in Tameside, Barnsley and other places where Reform UK has done well. However, there is an issue which is bigger than any of these, and is only going to become more so: the dire state of UK public finances. And on this, the instincts of Farage, Richard Tice, Danny Kruger and others are far less aligned with the people who are voting for their........