What is it about Nigel Farage that makes people fall out with him yet at the same time he never seems to fall out with them? I first met Nigel in in 1999 as a member of the newly introduced UKIP Regional Committees, when serving on the West Midlands Regional Committee and we were given the job of preparing for UKIP's very first two day conference and its first outside London.
The venue was. the National Motor Cycle Museum in Solihull. As we were there the day before the conference making preparations, Nigel, who at the time was the UKIP Party Secretary, suddenly arrived and was getting under our feet. I was then given the job of taking him to the cafe in the venue to buy him a coffee and keep him out of the way for as long as possible.
At that time only a handful of people knew of Nigel and as such I could take him to the café, plonk him down at a table without him being bothered by anyone or needing security, then head off to get a couple of coffees. When I sat down, I tried to make conversation with him, which over the several years I got to know him. I spent time in his company when later serving on the UKIP NEC and then for several years as as Regional Organiser and being in his company at many monthly meetings, I only ever really had a few proper conversations with him. On that day of my first meeting with him he spent most of the time speaking to people on his mobile phone, so we hardly passed the time of day.
Over the years I saw many people fall out with Nigel, including one who I was working for. Some of them would quit UKIP, storm off and the next thing you knew they had formed their own political party which, always according to them, was going to knock UKIP into a cocked hat. Of course they never did and soon vanished in obscurity at a considerable financial cost to them and their hangers on. Ironically, it was none other than Nigel himself who began the demise of UKIP when he walked away from the Party. Like many others I too walked away after 22 years of membership in 1999 as I was far from happy with the then direction a Nigel-less UKIP was taking.
Nigel must have a success gene within him, after a time out of mainstream politics he formed the Brexit Party, now Reform, both have seen remarkable successes. First the Brexit Party stormed the 2019 Euro elections before Boris managed to get Brexit done, since then the name changed to Reform which has seen its popularity rise, so much so it was the big winner in the 2026 local elections. With all this many have been saying that the Reform candidate in the Makerfield by-election could win. However, Robert Kenyon of Reform is up against one of the Labour Party 'big beasts', added to that, Kenyon's anti-abortion stance is coming under fire from the left wing press which is trying to make him look bad. But what is worse, trying to save and preserve an unborn life? Or, as now socialist legislation which allows abortion up to 26 weeks and six days? That is way past the time a foetus can survive a premature birth. So who is in the wrong, the Reform candidate wanting to protect life or socialists baying for the blood of the innocents?
However, I, and no doubt many others, will fear that Reform and Robert Kenyon will not be defeated by his wish to protect life and the vile slurs for wanting to do so being thrown at him, defeat will literally come from those who want exactly the same thing as the Reform candidate and his party. While the maniacal Green Party and it totally loopy leader at least have the nouse to stand aside and, although putting up a candidate, they will not be seriously campaigning in order to allow Labour's Andy Burnham as clear a run as possible to see off Reform. On the other side, the only party in this strong EU 'Leave' voting area that has a chance of defeating the mad Marxist Burnham is Reform. Rupert Lowe, has put forward a candidate for his little Restore Party and along with the Conservative Party will, no doubt, be campaigning under the delusion that their candidate can win, despite the fact it needs every voter who cares for Brexit and the country to vote Reform. I fear I despair at the stupidity of Mr Lowe, who I have never met and through his pigheadedness will be helping to create the downfall of Brexit and the country he has been fighting for. The three way split between Reform, Restore and the Conservative's will help defeat their joint aims.
Despite the fact everyone knows that Andy Burnham, as soon as he is elected will be aiming to take the Labour leadership and become the Prime Minister, and that as such he will turn the Labour Party even further left than currently, and will introduce eye watering taxes that will send the few remaining people with wealth fleeing faster than you can say "wealth tax". However, the biggest threat to the nation is Burnham's nation destroying aim to surrender the UK to the mercy and full control of the EU as a member. As I have pointed out many times over, to rejoin the EU means total surrender as the opt-outs of our manacled past membership of the EU will not be there, Burnham will take us in and surrender everything, including the pound sterling and control over our interest rates and economy - that will be the condition made by the EU and Britain will be finished and relegated to the status of a bankrupt Greek economy. Madness hardly does justice to Burnham's aims and those who believe his false promises in order to get elected, which he will renege on as soon as his posterior places itself on those green benches, or he puts a comradely boot through the door of 10 Downing Street. He will betray one an all.
However, what frightens me and makes me believe that Burnham the Marxist can win is not only the lunacy of those, such as Rupert Lowe happily splitting the vote just to get one over Nigel Farage, who he is now a bit miffed with, what worries me most was after reading an article by Dan Hodges in the Mail on Sunday (24th May). In that article he writes about visiting Makerfield searching for Andy Burnham and, as such, meeting many of the locals who will be voting. He points out that Burnham's big weapon is not in the fact he tries to make out he is the 'King of the North' or a man of the people, it is in the fact so many there see him as a friend and that is what will get him elected and will ensure Britain will be in for three more painful years of turmoil until the 2029 general election when, it is hoped, sanity will return and the Labour wrecking spree will be eradicated.
