The best part of the election campaign has been the debates with all seven parties. Conservatives and Labour battled each other but did not offer credible answers to a number of questions. The “smaller” parties came across better.
Nigel Farage was also there and was entertaining, but he had nothing to offer other than cakeism: this the pretence that you can have your cake and eat it too. In reality some choices are mutually exclusive.
Thus, Farage would like to improve the NHS and lift the two-child limit on child benefits, but he also wants lower taxes.
Healthcare crisis
According to Farage our healthcare is in crisis not because it is inadequately staffed and inadequately funded, but because the NHS model is not working. France, he argued, has better healthcare because of its insurance-based funding and despite spending the same amount of money as us.
This is just not true: France and other developed countries spend significantly more than the UK on health. As pointed out by the Liberal Democrat MP Daisy Cooper, the King’s Fund has looked into healthcare funding models and concluded that it is not the model of funding but the amount spent that makes the difference.
Migration
Farage blames migration for all our problems including NHS waiting lists, education failures and inadequate housing. Has he ever noticed the large number of migrants that work for the NHS, in schools and in the construction sector?
As the Green Party leader Carla Denyer put it: migrants in the NHS are more likely to treat us than to be treated. And, contrary to what Farage says, migration does not make us poorer as it results in economic growth and increased tax revenues.
The reality is that we have an ageing population and workforce shortages: we would have been worse off without migration. The only alternative would have been an expansion of the workforce through a significant increase in the minimum retirement age. It would have not been popular, and may not have been feasible because an increasing proportion of the population is inactive due to poor health.
Climate change
One of Farage’s most worrying stances is his opposition to climate change policies, that he argued are not necessary because the UK produces only 1% of the greenhouse gas emissions. This is deeply disingenuous. Of course we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions alongside all other nations, as agreed at various international conferences.
Is Farage not even aware that climate change could become a leading cause of population displacement and large-scale migration?
Farage is an anomaly in our political system. Party leaders are meant to be elected by their MPs or party members, with mechanisms to remove them when they fail.
Reform Party
Farage, though, owns the Reform Party and there are no party members: there is no democratic counterbalance.
The Conservatives are worried about the rise of Reform, but Tory leaders have nothing to say other than a vote for Farage would help Labour to win. Labour is not challenging Farage either: they seem only too pleased that, this time, he may help them to win more MPs.
Farage is harming this country not because he is in power but because both the Conservatives and Labour, the latter to a less extent, are defensively veering towards populism.
False arguments
If we want to bring about meaningful change in this country, we need to expose Farage false arguments. Stephen Flynn (from the Scottish National Party) has defined Farage as a “snake oil salesman” whereas David Cameron has been the only Conservative politician with the guts to say that Farage’s inflammatory language and “dog whistle” politics must be rejected.
Cameron had previously described UKIP (Farage’s former creation) as “fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists”. Not much has changed with Reform as a number of its candidates have been associated with deplorable statements.
Matthew Parris, a columnist in a Conservative-leaning newspaper, has argued that Rishi Sunak has been wrong in moving the Tories to policies and arguments ever closer to those of Farage.
According to Parris, politicians should have the courage “to tell people what some don’t want to hear: that our woes are not caused by immigration”. Chasing Farage in the pursuit of ever more extreme policies can only lead to one outcome: the Tories walking off the end of the pier (The Times 15 June).
