A party of paradoxical politics posing as a political chameleon, strategically changing its rhetorical colours and appealing to an audience hungry for vindication.
Reform UK, the burgeoning party of Nigel Farage, pledges to ‘reform’ a ‘broken Britain’ and to bring us back to the ‘good days’ of yesteryear. This Janus-faced stance (looking forwards to change and backwards to traditional Britain) perfectly encapsulates the peculiar paradox at the heart of the party.
Reform UK is an organism replete with contradictions and careful equivocation. It is a party whose populist appeal stems from its canny ability to craft its message to appeal to several political groups simultaneously. Farage’s vision for a reformed nation speaks both to Brits who long for the imperial glory days and those who clamour for a technology-driven, fast-paced future to rival great powers like China or the United States. Reform UK is a political chameleon and its identity conundrum arises out of its penchant for equivocation and polychrome multiplicity.
A Chameleon is never out-of-place
Laila Cunningham, Reform’s candidate for the Mayor of London, recently declared ‘I am a Muslim, but as mayor, I would want the burqa banned’. Her words cunningly epitomise the paradox of the party’s chameleon politics. A Muslim mayor-candidate who would ban the burqa? Where is the justification for such a provocative stance? But indeed this paradoxical policy is a strategically genius ploy: Miss Cunningham is consciously adopting the role of the ‘familiar other’.
The ‘familiar other’ consciously self-discriminates, makes a ‘sacrifice’ in order to flatter the voter, and further alienate the ‘real other’. This method of assimilation by erasure, or even by attacking ones own identity, echoes, more than 70 years after it was originally published, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Fanon writes ‘I owe it to myself to affirm that the Arab, permanently an alien in his own country, lives in a state of absolute depersonalization’. His notion of the depersonalised other rings true even today, an alarming reminder that identity politics seems to be moving backwards rather than forwards.
In a roundabout way, Cunningham proclaims I’m not like other Muslims and, in so doing, appeals to the diverse audience that Reform UK has assembled by using her Egyptian heritage persuasively. Even a Muslim woman says she would ban the burka… In bowing to the voter’s prejudices in order to validate and vindicate their bigoted views, she makes the electorate feel seen and heard. UK populism (and populism generally) thrives off the creation of the familiar and depersonalised ‘other’, and it is weaponised as a form of identity politics in its own right. It is the chameleon’s unique ability to blend into its surroundings, making ‘difference’ relatable, rendering prejudice palatable.
Cunningham is far from the only Reform politician who has mastered the chameleon identity. Farage, the party leader, renowned for his hardline Brexit jingoism, hardly lets this conviction compromise his children’s possession of a German passport. Or perhaps we might consider his paradoxical status as a hardline Brexiteer and a former MEP. But again, this is where the genius comes in: I’ve been in the European Parliament, intimates Farage, I’ve seen the malfunctioning and the syphoning off of British money, I hear your complaints and I vindicate and validate them with my own keen-eyed experience. Little did the Brits know, Farage’s preferred move during his stint as MEP was to enter a parliamentary session, whip out his phone, record a snippet to later mock on his social media, and leave before even hearing the gist of the debate. His mastery of the English language meant he could give an effective speech, but in reality, Farage had little idea what was going on…and no one mentions his hefty EU pension.
The line drawn between paradox and hypocrisy is very fine. But making people feel heard works. Being a privately-educated City Banker hardly matters when you are perceived as a ‘man of the people’ promising to save the British pub from destitution. Farage has mastered the art of equivocation and of simultaneously being two entirely paradoxical things. And the issue is, we cannot even effectively levy the accusation of hypocrisy against him because he is so shifty.
Modern-day Mussolinis
It is a tale as old as time that politicians practice hypocrisy. We must only refer back to the PPE procurement scandal under Johnson, or the Angela Rayner second home tax fraud escapade to remind ourselves of this. Hypocrisy spans the political and ideological spectrum, and though perhaps we must also realise that politicians are only human and cut them slack given the constant scrutiny they face from the electorate, we should not ignore the consequences it has on public image. Voters vitriolically hate a hypocrite. This is why Farage’s chameleon strategy is so clever. He is never a hypocrite; rather he is the ‘enlightened other’ who has realised the error of his ways and is personally reformed.
Take the following example. Resolutely anti-immigration (despite the German ex-wife) and vehemently Eurosceptic (who needs to be paid by the EU anyway when Iranian billionaires will step in), he exacerbates the tense debate that dominates UK discourse about immigrants being a thorn in the side of British identity. And yet, in his passionate campaign to protect the ‘Chagossians’ from the humanitarian affront that the Labour government is trying to (re)subject them to by transferring Diego Garcia to Mauritius, Farage is able to appeal to an audience concerned for minority rights (and also British overseas territories). He is also able to dub Sir Keir Starmer, former human rights barrister, a hypocrite in the process.
Farage has no regard for his own principles, nor for his own political identity, nor for the identity of the party. The chameleon strategy means that party line and party identity are entirely flexible; they flow with the times, chopping and changing arbitrarily so as to gain votes, not because they bring about any meaningful change or follow any particular agenda. A contemporary politician in the party of Mussolini once wrote of Il Duce, ‘The problem with Mussolini is that he wants everybody’s blessing and he changes his coat five times a day to get it’. Mussolini was a socialist, turned socialist-hater; staunchly anti-Church and yet cut a deal with the pope under the Lateran Pacts; he even took a train to the capital in the famous 1922 March on Rome because it was raining, though he still posed for the pretty pictures. Mussolini was the original political chameleon. Mussolini, let it not be forgotten, is not fondly remembered. Evidently, Nigel has sought out interesting political role-models.
Farage’s coat, and his colour, change in such swift succession. He is often lauded for making controversial but valid statements; advocating for difficult reforms and having more ‘backbone’ than all other British politicians. But really, he has no backbone at all. Really, Farage is spineless—a scarecrow blown in the wind. Or, like a chameleon, unsure of which colour it should turn next.
Wannabe Winstons
In spite of his own absence of a fixed identity, Farage is obsessed with the notion of the British identity. His ‘good days will return’ propaganda video sees him meander along the sunset-soaked coast of his constituency. He rambles about his dogs, about fishing with his sons, about his obsession with WW2 militaria. He praises the ‘anti-invasion’ capacity of the remains of a WW2 artillery station, ever so subtly drawing a comparison between the attempted Nazi invasion of 1940, to the immigration problem faced by Britain today. Most stand-out however, is how Farage hammers home the message that he is fighting for the ‘British identity’: ‘The younger generation [are] hungry, they want that sense of identity, they want that sense of belonging’. He calls for traditional values and ‘patriotic pride’. But what is being British? What is this identity that he craves and calls for?
The true strength of British identity is strength in one’s moral resolve. This is what Churchill, for all his many controversies, was most famed for. Trump’s recent rebuke of Starmer as ‘no Winston Churchill’ is fatally accurate. I would argue that it is quite a relief that our current PM is not Churchillian in his politics, but he does lack conviction, and the ability to maintain strong nerve, particularly when faced with political bullies like Trump.
The chameleon strategy means that party line and party identity are entirely flexible; they flow with the times, chopping and changing arbitrarily so as to gain votes, not because they bring about any meaningful change or follow any particular agenda.
But is Farage the new Churchill? He would certainly have himself be. But he, and his party Reform UK, are fatally flawed in their lack of consistency, of resolve, of backbone, of principle. ‘Britishness’ is such a peculiar concept to try to define. But I would hazard that it lies, at least in part, in quiet strength, in personal conviction, in integrity.
Reflecting on what defines the British identity, one example often comes to mind. In the aftermath of the horrific 7th July 2005 terror attacks in London, the city was in a state of disarray. But in a moment of such tragedy, and such fear, the British politicians and the British public held their nerve. Come the evening, the tube was running again as usual, normal life recommenced. One core sentiment prevailed: ‘Keep calm, and carry on’—the same slogan plastered in the underground platforms during the Blitz. Stay strong under pressure. Hold your nerve.
This is what British identity is about. Not scapegoating minority groups or banning the burqa. Trust, consistency, continuity: they all matter when it comes to politics, no matter which side of the political spectrum. This is what Reform UK cannot offer. This is why the chameleon identity, effective though it might be in amassing support, is so dangerous. Because it is built on paradox, on hypocrisy and on lack of resolve. Reform UK’s identity conundrum is not a conundrum at all, but rather a conscious, self-interested choice to commit to nothing but its own success.
The author of this article chooses to keep their identity anonymous.
SOURCES
Christopher Hibbert Il Dulce The Life Of Benito Mussolino
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