When Harold Wilson resigned as prime minister in 1976, the Sunday Telegraph’s Peregrine Worsthorne dismissed the announcement as “another characteristic confidence trick… a final brilliant act of legerdemain”. In other words, he didn’t believe it. Wilson was too wily, too tricksy, too cunning to take his word at face value. I feel something similar towards Nigel Farage this week. His announcement on 7 July that he is quitting parliament, sparking a by-election in Clacton in which he intends to stand in a battle to the death against “the establishment”, was a characteristic manoeuvre from this most capricious of political figures. Farage today stands closer to power than at any time in his life – closer to the glory he now appears to think is his destiny. And yet, as pressure builds over his financial arrangements, he also stands closer to ruin and tragedy than ever before.
The revelation in April that Farage had failed to disclose a £5m personal gift from the Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne has since grown into a wider set of questions about his funding, accelerated by the Sunday Times’s revelations about the extent of his relationship with the fraudster George Cottrell. Farage now faces the prospect of two separate inquiries into his financial arrangements from parliament’s standards commissioner, which could result in him being suspended.
Farage’s decision to resign as an MP before the findings are published looks like a transparent attempt to pre-empt the ruling, taking back the initiative and turning the pressure on his opponents. Entirely legitimate scrutiny has been recast as an attempt to stifle democracy; a by-election will be spun as a referendum against the establishment, the people against the elite; Clacton will be voting, according to Farage at least, not to save his political career but to “continue the political revolution”. As Worsthorne might have put it, what we are witnessing is politics as a trick, but it is unlikely to be Farage’s final one. In fact, rather than the furious resignation from politics some briefly anticipated, his announcement is confirmation of his desperation to win. He has sniffed power and, it is now clear, is ruthlessly determined to pursue it all the way to the next election.
His latest display was a reminder – if anyone needed one – of why Farage is such a formidable politician. Part of the art of politics is to define the terrain on which you wish to fight. Tony Blair used to argue that it was no good politicians thinking they could play it safe to avoid confrontation. In reality, such an approach only guarantees that the confrontation, when it comes, will be over something you do not want to fight about, but your opponents do. Better to punch first, and to punch where it hurts them. The only option for a successful politician is relentless political conflict. Farage seems to grasp this basic political reality. When Andy Burnham replaces Keir Starmer in a few weeks’ time, it is imperative that he does too.
Yet, we should not shy away from what Farage is trying to do here. Contrary to his bleating – “I have done nothing wrong”, “I did not break the law” – it is entirely legitimate for the media to scrutinise his private financial dealings, given he wants to lead the next government of this country. Indeed, it is our duty to do so. “Yes, I had the equivalent of a lottery win,” Farage admitted over the £5m “gift” he received from his friend. But that money did not come from a lottery win; he did not buy a ticket – and Harborne is not above inquiry. If Starmer or Burnham had received a multimillion-pound cheque from an overseas friend months before taking office, are we supposed to believe Farage would have said that was fine and above board? Of course not. Farage is fighting for his political life, forced into a manoeuvre he did not want to make to regain the initiative.
When Harold Wilson resigned, when Farage was 11 and already a rambunctiously reactionary schoolboy, to put it mildly, he burst into class to celebrate the fall of the Labour prime minister by singing “The Sun Has Got His Hat On”. This time, his opponents are unlikely to take much pleasure in his own dramatic resignation, fearful of another act of legerdemain, the results of which are hard to predict – though once again, we are all talking about Farage.
Legerdemain is another way of saying sleight of hand, a deception, to draw attention away from something in pursuit of something else. This is Farage’s great trick. But whatever happens in Clacton, the reality remains just as it was: the parliamentary inquiries will roll on, the questions remain. Farage is feeling the pressure. As he should.
[Further reading: You can’t blame Brexit anymore]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 08 Jul 2026 issue of the New Statesman, The Great Con
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment