Nigel Farage arrives on the Essex coast fresh from his mauling by the BBC’s Nick Robinson, who baited him for his Donald Trump-style suggestion that Western expansion was to blame for Russia invading Ukraine.
The bronzed disrupter likens the line of questioning to the ‘Russia hoax’ – the term used by his friend Trump to describe claims he colluded with Vladimir Putin.
‘I dealt with him [Robinson] pretty well,’ says Farage. ‘I might have used the word cobblers.’
A few hours later, with the row heading for the front pages, the Reform UK leader ‘clarified’ his remarks, saying: ‘Putin was wrong to invade a sovereign nation and the EU was wrong to expand eastwards.’
The appearance of Russian appeasement was not a good look, and represents the first major misstep in a campaign which threatens to destroy the Conservative Party and reshape the landscape of British politics.
Reform has also suffered negative publicity over the often-outrageous remarks made by its candidates – Farage blames his vetting company – but has tried to ride out the storms by relying on the cult of its leader.
Clacton is Farage’s eighth attempt to win a Commons seat, but this feels different to his last effort in Thanet South, when he was squashed by Lord Cameron’s ruthless Tory election machine on the way to a clear Conservative majority.
Local polls put Farage far enough ahead for him to already be househunting in the seat ‘as an investment property as much as anything’. Moving from Rishi Sunak’s campaign tour to Farage’s operation in the East Anglian constituency is to swap the Funeral March for a Taylor Swift concert.
It is near impossible to find a corner of Farage’s campaign HQ quiet enough in which to conduct an interview, as he is constantly besieged by supporters asking him to sign photographs or pose for selfies.
Eventually we just go to a pub, where a doughnut of camera-wielding admirers forms, watched over by ex-Marines who act as Farage’s hired muscle. American accents mingle with estuarial tones as a group of Trumpites join the throng.
Farage is blithely unconcerned by the fact that his rise in the polls – up to 20 per cent in the most recent ones – is on course to split the Right-wing vote and hand Sir Keir Starmer a supermajority, which he could use to undo Farage’s legacy of Brexit.
‘The Conservative Party has betrayed their voters. They are hated, they are loathed,’ says Farage. ‘One quarter of their 2019 voters want them to get zero seats.
‘That’s the price of betrayal. If I’d stayed at home for this election campaign, they would have bombed anyway.’
He feels no guilt for what is likely to be coming down the track. ‘Are the Tories heading for a catastrophe? Yes. They have done this to themselves.
‘They are so divided on policy, they’re so inconsistent. The messages they’re putting out in the campaign represent the highest level of dishonesty I’ve ever seen in British politics: ‘We’re a low-tax party who wants to control the English Channel and reduce immigration,’ they say.
‘Have I worsened the situation? Yes. But is that a negative worse? No. Because we’re going to win seats. We are going to win a lot more seats than anybody can imagine. In the Red Wall seats we’re so ahead of the Tories that if you vote Conservative you will get Labour.’
With Tory candidates already looking ahead to the post-election leadership race, Farage has the satisfaction of helping to define the contest. The successful candidate will first have to survive the landslide, and then decide how to try to neutralise Reform.
If Boris Johnson comes back as an MP, would Farage work with him. He lists Boris’s record on ‘mass immigration and insane Net Zero policies’ as a reason not to, and the fact he is ‘loathed by at least 50 per cent of 2019 Tories’, but he then concedes: ‘I like his personality. The more I’ve heard of him I like.
‘But he is directly responsible for this level of mass immigration. Now if he repents of that, fine. If he doesn’t, it’s never going to work.’
What about the jockeying leadership contenders such as former Home Secretary Priti Patel? ‘Of course Priti.’
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch? ‘On the edge.’ Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt? ‘No.’
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick? ‘Yes. He has been through a change. I like a lot of what he says. With Kemi I’m just not sure what she really is.’
Farage is clearly confident that he will be rubbing shoulders with the remnants of the Tory party in the Commons after July 4.
‘I remember in 2015, leading Ukip at this stage of the election, felt like dry sand slipping through your fingers,’ he says.
‘This time the momentum is the other way. We can go a lot further. When people see this inflection point in the polls it becomes easier to vote with your heart. We want to hold Starmer to account on the Single Market and on borders, which, well, he’s not even mentioning. His six priorities don’t even mention immigration.’
As a political better – but not an insider better, of course, in the alleged manner of several Conservatives over the election date – what odds would he put on becoming Prime Minister at some point?
‘I don’t know. I’ve made a five-year commitment,’ he says. ‘I’m absolutely convinced the Labour Party in government will be the most incompetent we’ve ever seen.
‘After this election I’m gonna build a mass movement. By 2029 maybe somebody younger and brighter than me might come along, and if they do I’ll recognise it immediately and jump.’
As a public school-educated politician whose bedrock support comes from blue-collar voters, what class does Farage think that he belongs to?
‘Not part of any class,’ he says. ‘Never have been. The traditional working class doesn’t really exist any more, but the kind of working class people you’ve got here [in the constituency] might not have a lot of money but do have a lot of values.
‘Community matters to them; country matters to them. The upper middle classes are your Rishi Sunaks. No working class Prime Minister would have left D-Day early. Their instincts would have been very, very different. He’s hopelessly out of touch. Starmer? I don’t know who he is.’
Despite the pints of Lady of the Lake bitter being sunk in the White Hart pub, Farage is noticeably less beery these days. He estimates he is drinking a third of the amount of alcohol he consumed during his boozy peak as Ukip leader, and it is a ‘long time’ since he enjoyed one of his PFLs [proper f****** lunch].
He bridles slightly when asked if that is due to the influence of his long-term partner, Laure Ferrari.
‘If anyone tries to tell me what to do it doesn’t always get a good result,’ he says. ‘None of us know what’s round the corner, of course, but generally I’m pretty fit and healthy and the pace I’ve maintained for the last three years – I would defy many people to do it.
‘Do I still enjoy a drink? Of course I do but, you know, I’m 60, I’ve got it under control. It doesn’t control me. I exercise more than I did. I have lost quite a lot of weight.’
Farage’s rumbustious personal life seems to have calmed down – there were four children with two wives before Ms Ferrari – as he looks forward to becoming a grandfather for the first time this week: ‘I’m feeling very laidback – determined, but relaxed.’
Not a word which will spring to mind for many Tory candidates this weekend.