‘For most of my political career, I’ve been using a shotgun – blasting away just to raise awareness of an issue; to get people to vote on it. Winning seats was irrelevant,’ shouts Nigel Farage above the rising judder of rotor blades preparing for take-off. ‘Now, though, it’s time for rifles.’
And with that it’s lift-off as we head for Merseyside, where his Reform troops are in the process of overrunning several Labour citadels.
Reform and its leader have been absorbing an astonishing set of local election results since dawn – and these keep on coming as the day progresses.
Earlier predictions of peaking too soon, of collateral damage from the war in Iran (Mr Farage is an old chum of President Trump) or leaks about Reform’s financial arrangements, have proved wide of the mark.
The main conclusion to be drawn from these results is that Reform is no longer just threatening but now usurping both the main parties in their own backyards.
I meet Mr Farage at lunchtime, still as perky as he was at dawn when he watched Reform capture its first London borough, Havering, on the capital’s eastern fringe.
Reform has wiped out the Tories there completely. He has spent the morning watching the results roll in and now he is heading off on a nationwide helicopter tour to congratulate his troops on some historic victories on both political flanks. The Daily Mail is on board.
First, he’s heading north to ‘Red Wall’ country to celebrate a hatful of wins over Labour in its tribal heartlands in the North. Then, he’s going to come back south and gloat over Reform’s triumphs in hitherto staunchly Tory ‘Blue Wall’ country – Essex, right on Kemi Badenoch’s constituency doorstep.
Nigel Farage headed off on a nationwide helicopter tour to congratulate his troops on some historic victories on both political flanks (pictured with Robert Hardman)
At dawn, Farage watched Reform capture its first London borough, Havering, on the capital’s eastern fringe
He has had no sleep – ‘sleep’s for weaklings’ – but has allowed himself ‘a couple of sharpeners’ at the Westminster Arms to set him up for the rest of the day. How sharp? ‘Two imperial pints of English ale,’ he says brightly.
I digress to ask him what he thinks about the proposed ban on airport bars selling booze at breakfast – as some airlines are demanding: ‘These people just want to take the fun out of everything. They make me sick.’
We are in the tiny departure lounge at Battersea Heliport, where a dozen winners of a competition are about to receive their prize in the form of a helicopter ride across London. They are from all over the country and none recoils at the sight of Mr Farage. Quite the opposite. They are all queuing for a selfie.
‘Good to see some more winners!’ he exclaims. It’s a reflection of the way this campaign has broken through, he insists. ‘One surprise was going round Glasgow and the binmen stopped in their orange vests for a selfie,’ he says. A far cry from the day when he was barricaded in an Edinburgh pub for hours for his own safety.
‘People have got the message that we are for people who get up in the morning and go to work to pay for all the other people who think staying at home is a lifestyle choice,’ he says.
As well as the constant interruptions for selfies, he is fielding constant updates from staff, mostly triumphal, plus the odd glitch.
‘Colin Sutton’s gone in Diss…’ shouts another aide, glued to his phone.
‘Now that is a shame,’ says the leader. ‘I am sorry to lose Britain’s best-known policeman.’ Prior to becoming Reform’s police and crime tsar, Mr Sutton was one of the Met’s most prolific detectives. But he has been pipped by the Greens in Norfolk.
The Greens, of course, are also having a good day, though not a patch on Reform. ‘They weren’t ready,’ shrugs Mr Farage. ‘They popped up out of nowhere. And all the contradictions within the party are showing up.’
Farage takes questions at random (unlike the Greens, it must be said, who like to pre-select their interrogators), Robert Hardman observes
He is fascinated by the situation in Birmingham, where Reform could end up as the largest party, though he would be content not to be in overall charge of the largest (and most financially distressed) unitary authority in Europe right now, saying: ‘It’s all over the shop there – chaos.’
Similarly, he is very happy with the prospect of being a close second in Wales for the time being. ‘Being a strong opposition in Wales is a very good place for us to be at this stage.’ In other words, he is wary of premature over-reach before the next general election.
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‘You should never ever stand on the 17th hole thinking, “I’ve got this,” because then you make a balls of it. My focus, my main focus as chief executive of this outfit is to make sure we’re battle ready, to make sure we are professional, to ensure we’ve got the right candidates.’
And with that, we are up and away to St Helens, where the local council should have declared the result by the time we get there. Except they are still counting (albeit with the result landing in Reform’s lap). We land at Liverpool John Lennon Airport and a convoy of minivans speeds us to The Dam Inn where the local media are waiting in an upstairs suite.
Mr Farage orders a gin and tonic while he digests the latest results. ‘We should have gone to Sunderland!’ he chuckles. ‘We’ve already won there. But we’ve got five out of six here already and the local Labour MP is already calling for Starmer to resign.’
He takes questions at random (unlike the Greens, it must be said, who like to pre-select their interrogators). He does his jaunty, foot-rocking routine when asked what will happen to Sir Keir – ‘personally, I’d like him to stay where he is!’
He only clouds over when someone asks about the historic £5million gift from a billionaire ostensibly for his security, growling that he will need bodyguards for the rest of his life (a trio are in attendance all day). Would Andy Burnham, mayor of neighbouring Manchester, be a harder opponent nationally? He ripostes by asking how Burnham would re-enter the Commons: ‘Name me a safe seat in the North-West now.’ Aides interrupt him with more stats: ‘31 out of 33 in Wakefield, Nigel…’
On the way back to the airport – a lot quieter than in the air – I ask him how this round of wins differs from last year.
‘A lot of people thought that was a freak, a one-off. But here we are and we’re ending the old Left/Right/North/South divide which I was brought up with – middle classes vote Tory, working classes vote Labour. We’ve just blown all that out of the water.’
Looking ahead to a general election, perhaps his greatest challenge is one not faced by the other main parties: the institutionalised hostility of the state.
How will he get policies like ‘Vote Green and we’ll stick an asylum detention centre in your area’ past the Civil Service?
He accepts that he has three obstacles: the House of Lords (‘in its present state’), Whitehall (‘the work-from-home Blob’) and the judiciary.
‘We’re working on all that, he says, adding that he has already agreed with French presidential hopeful, Jordan Bardella, that the Royal Marines would be able to tow illegal small boats back in to French waters. ‘He knows that as soon as we start doing that, the gangs will collapse. And French voters in Dunkirk and Calais are fed up with falling house prices because of these illegals.’
It is interesting to note that he does not raise immigration explicitly in his speeches during the day. Rather he talks a lot about ‘women who ask me to save this country’ because ‘they fear for their daughters and granddaughters’ without citing the source of this perceived danger.
‘I used to be demonised for even discussing immigration. Now you don’t even need to mention it. It’s accepted as an issue.’
I ask how he will avoid a bond market crash on day one if he sticks to his spending plans. ‘Look, something like the [pension] triple lock is an absolute tiddler compared to the fact that one in six people on Universal Credit is a foreigner. Sorry, that has to end.’
Later this year, he will take one further step towards mainstream respectability. Now that his party numbers eight MPs, he will finally qualify to stand next to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday (the threshold is six), something which means a great deal to this keen military historian. Will that be a proud moment?
‘Oh don’t worry, they’ll find a way of changing the rules to stop me being there,’ he insists. On a day when he is sweeping all before him on the national map, Mr Farage still sees himself as the outsider with a mountain to climb.
