Farage and his mortifying dimwit entourage represent no-one but themselves

Photo by sasan rashtipour on Unsplash

Reform is holding its annual conference today. And during that conference Nigel Farage and his carnival of grotesques will talk a lot about the will of the people, and what the public really want, and the view of the country, and how distant all of that is from the imaginary elite forces they so detest.

Obviously it's all nonsense, but we now have some well timed research to demonstrate it. A report published yesterday by British Future, using polling conducted by Ipsos of 3,000 adults, reveals the reality: Reform are freaks. They're not some mystical representation of the authentic national personality. They're twat outliers in an otherwise relatively benign public landscape.

Seventy-two per cent of Reform voters consider immigration one of the top three issues in deciding their 2024 vote. The figure for the general public is just 27%. Fifty-five per cent of Reform voters think immigration should be the number one priority of the new government. The figure for the public is 19%. Seventy-five per cent of Reform voters want large reductions in numbers. The fixture for the public is 38%. Their perception of immigration is -62 negative. The figure for the general public is +3 positive. They strongly oppose supported resettlement schemes for Ukrainians, Hong Kong citizens and Syrians. The public supports it.

They are not representative of opinion in any way, shape or form. Populists always claim to have this magical link with the true national spirit, with the deep convictions of their fellow countrymen that only they can summon or understand. It's always nonsense, but rarely has it been quite as nonsensical as this. Any reading of the numbers shows them to be a gaggle of fringe extremists, the same old nasty hard-right rump they've always been, now standing under a shiny new party banner. 

The report's numbers reveal a picture of total incomprehension about immigration. The public are troublingly misinformed about the numbers arriving in Britain.

On average, the public thinks asylum seekers make up a third of total immigration. The more sceptical about migration they are, the higher the percentage they think it is. People who hold liberal views on immigration think asylum seekers make up 19% of the total. People who hold critical views of immigration think they make up 47%. They're all wrong, although needless to say the anti-immigration lot are most wrong of all. The actual figure is seven per cent.

More than five  times as many people come to the UK to study each year than claim asylum. But the public thinks there are twice as many asylum seekers as international students.

Whichever way you look at it, that is a failure of journalism. Politicians must take some responsibility too, of course, but it's basically their job to lie to the public. Journalists are supposed to be enlightening people about the state of the world around them. If so, we've made a pig's ear of it.

"Ten years ago, when asked who they thought of as a migrant, people were most likely to say an Eastern European migrant coming to work in the UK via free movement," the report says. "Twenty years ago people would be more likely to think of ethnic minorities. This latest tracker found work migrants and asylum seekers have now swapped places in the public consciousness: only 46% now think of a 'migrant' as someone coming to work; 70% think of an asylum seeker."

It's telling that the classic image of an immigrant is whatever the scare story is at the time. The early New Labour period was dominated, in a way we forget now, by talk of "illegal asylum seekers". That was the type of press coverage it received. It's why Tony Blair now seems to talk in barely-coded racial language when he discusses immigration - his formative political years were tinged in this direction.

The late New Labour and early Coalition years were dominated by fears of Eastern Europeans, as an expression of anxiety around free movement. Again, this was largely centred around press reports, which seemed to grow more hysterical by the day. The end result was the Brexit vote, the dismantling of Britain's trading status and the utter degradation of its diplomatic reputation.

Now it's people on small boats. In each era, the concern the public has, the image it has in its mind, is provided by press coverage. The Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Sun, churning this stuff out, day after day. Farage revels in it, nearly always appointing himself the assigned representative of this position. And then, in the most important moment, it is taken up by broadcast journalists who use it as an attack question against politicians and spread it to a much wider audience. A remorseless machine-gun round of 'genuine concerns'. And what do we get at the end of it? A public which is catastrophically misinformed about a subject it purportedly cares about. That's a journalism failure, right there. That's a failure of coverage. As acute and patent and damaging as it's possible to imagine.

There are two paths for Labour now. They can replicate the mistakes of the past or they can try something new. 

There's no point appealing to that lunatic fringe in Reform. You will never be able to satisfy them. You will never be able to do something so cruel and inhumane that Nigel Farage will finally call it quits and decide he's onside. It will simply alienate Labour's natural supporters while doing nothing to secure Farage's natural supporters. If you retain the populist frame, populism cannot be defeated. The conversation must change, not just the opinions expressed within it.

The Tories have demonstrated this in the strongest possible terms, shedding any notional sense of decency with Rwanda and various inoperative immigration bills, all to no avail. It's imperative Labour does not make the same mistake.

But there is another way to approach the matter: talk honestly and openly about immigration, with all its trade offs. The public are prepared to hear it and would have their understanding improved by it.

Buried throughout the data are signs that people are yearning for a more nuanced conversation about this subject. Most people want immigration reduced, and generally views are actually hardening against immigration. But ask them how, and the whole thing freezes up. Once you make it specific, they hesitate. Only 18% of people want fewer social care workers, just 14% want fewer nurses, 19% fewer seasonal fruit pickers and 24% fewer construction workers. There is a clear alarm at the scale of immigration but a clear recognition of the need for it to fill skills gaps and boost growth. 

Respondents were presented with a potential deal with France on small boats. It would see France take back some people in return for the UK taking a larger number through regularised routes. Thirty-six per cent of people would support that while 26% would oppose it, with a further 26% on the fence. Even Conservative voters were slightly more supportive than opposed. Crucially, the so-called 'balancer middle', of people who are neither pro nor anti immigration but could go either way, backed it strongly. A government with a bit of bravery and a decent communication strategy could build a consensus out of that.

When people were asked about 'legal routes' to come to the UK as a way of discouraging small boat crossings, it was supported by 42% and opposed by 32%. When they were asked about humanitarian resettlement schemes, of the sort we've run for Ukranians, you find 48% support and 29% opposition. 

Again, these are the kinds of results you can build on. But doing so will require some courage and conviction. The last time a deal with France was suggested, the Daily Mail ran a headline saying it could involve "taking 100,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy". Farage will be there, hurling insults, insisting that only he stands up for the common man. This is what they do. This is what they'll always do: hysteria, cynicism, bleating victimhood, seething hatefulness. Anything rational will be dismissed as betrayal. Anything constructive will be branded surrender.

What have we achieved, by following the Mail-Farage nexus? Absolutely nothing at all. A grossly misinformed public, a deranged national debate, and the repeated pulverisation of political parties who are unwilling to talk honestly about this issue. 

The public are ready for a more grown-up conversation, if Labour is prepared to have it. If not, we'll still be trapped in that godforsaken conference hall, with Farage and his dimwitted ale-and-fags acolytes, claiming to represent a country they do not understand. By god we all deserve better.

Odds and sods

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