Nigel Farage: They claim I'm ill — the truth is they're running scared

Times

2 days ago

The rumours began to spread through Westminster a few weeks ago, on both sides of the political divide. Labour and Tory MPs began to gossip openly about Nigel Farage's health, suggesting that the 61-year-old's relentless schedule was taking its toll.
The Reform UK leader is happy to set the record straight: the rumours are untrue. 'I think the fact they are spreading these rumours — which they are — is because it's the last card they've got,' he said. 'They can't question us on immigration. They can't question us on crime. They have nothing to go on.'
Farage's carefully cultivated public image of the smoking, pint-swilling raconteur is rooted in reality. He still enjoys a drink and the occasional lunch that can drift on for hours into the afternoon. But he is changing with age. The long days — rising at 4.50am, going to bed at 11pm — are exhausting and the Reform UK leader says he has moderated his lifestyle to suit.
'I don't think I've ever worked under more intensity than I have for the last year,' he said. 'It's an enormous task, building a new political party and movement. I'm trying to moderate with age.
'I wouldn't say the BMA would hold me up as a pin-up boy, but I'm feeling good. A bit of exercise, I walk the dogs. Yesterday I had lunch with a very interesting chap. We got through lunch with just one bottle. I'm not too bad at all really. I look at people I was at school with and think I'm doing well.'
Not sweating the small stuff
Farage says the biggest change to his lifestyle is that he is now more zen. 'I just don't let little things worry me. I don't let online criticism worry me. Nothing really gets to me at all any more.'
Farage is more serious than he has ever been. With Reform UK riding high in the polls — they have held their lead since April and their support shows no signs of ebbing — he believes that he has a genuine shot at becoming prime minister. 'This is it,' he said. 'It's the last shot for me. I actually think in the view of an increasing number of people it's the last shot for the country.'
That Farage's health has become a source of discussion in Westminster is perhaps unsurprising.
With Farage at the helm, Reform UK is a genuine threat to the established political order. Without him, his critics believe, his nascent party would collapse. He is, they say, a one-man band.
Farage appears to be acutely aware that he is potentially a single point of failure. He is trying to promote those around him, particularly Zia Yusuf, who has emerged as one of the party's main spokesmen.
His aim is to ensure that Reform UK is not synonymous with his personal brand but recognised in its own right. 'I'm very keen to promote others,' he said. 'I don't want the crime campaign just to be me. It's about the brand Reform itself, standing on its own two feet. We are getting there. People say to me in the street now, 'I think I'm a Reformer'.'
The real opposition
His rivals begrudgingly praise his communication skills. His campaigning on Brexit and his insatiable appetite for public appearances have made him a household name. He is a friend of President Trump, and when JD Vance comes to the Cotswolds this month for a family holiday Farage will be one of the few British politicians he sees.
His profile easily eclipses that of Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader. A YouGov poll for The Times found that 64 per cent of voters had a clear idea of what he stands for, compared with 30 per cent for Badenoch and 26 per cent for Sir Keir Starmer.
On the question of who was providing the more effective opposition, Reform or the Tories, the response was overwhelming: 42 per cent said it is Farage's party, compared with 9 per cent who said the Conservatives. Nearly half of those who voted Tory at the last election said Farage was doing a better job at opposing Starmer.
The polling is so clear that Starmer has decided that he had no choice but to treat Farage as the real leader of the opposition.
This may be in part political opportunism — Reform UK's rise damages the Tories more than Labour — but senior figures in Labour are increasingly concerned about the strategy and that by calling Farage out at every turn Starmer risks alienating his base and creating a monster that will ultimately consume him.
Farage's new work ethic borders on Stakhanovite. He is planning to take four days off over the summer — he wants to go fishing with his son — but spends most of his time hammering home his new message on law and order.
Britain, he argues at his now weekly press conferences, is broken. There is a steady drumbeat of announcements — sending violent offenders to El Salvador, halving crime within five years, building nightingale prisons on army bases, scrapping the online safety act — along with a string of public endorsements.
Farage's aim is to at once broaden Reform UK's message while also drawing a direct link between migration and crime. He is said to be building up to an announcement on deporting illegal immigrants.
Those involved say it is a substantive piece of work; there is talk of a 100-page policy document detailing how Reform UK would take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). A draft bill is being drawn up with emergency powers to allow the detention and deportation of people arriving in Britain on small boats.
Although Farage insists that the Tories are irrelevant, the approach appears to be aimed in part at outflanking them. Badenoch is expected to use her conference speech to confirm plans to leave the ECHR to tackle small boat crossings. Farage intends to get there first by going faster and harder.
Preparing for power
The expected strapline for Reform's conference will be Next Steps as Farage seeks to embed in the minds of voters the idea that it is preparing for power.
The party has sought to professionalise its operation, using an influx of money from new members to move to a bigger office in Millbank tower. The office comes equipped with a live studio space, which Farage can use to film ad hoc videos to respond to fast-moving events. The intention is to make Reform UK more agile and responsive.
Reform saw Trump's visit to Scotland this week as proof of the tectonic shift in British politics. The highlight from Trump's extraordinary 70-minute press conference with a largely silent Starmer was when the president was asked what his advice to Farage and Starmer would be before the election.
'You know, politics is pretty simple,' Trump said. 'I assume there's a thing going on between you and Nigel, and it's OK. It's two parties. But generally speaking, the one who cuts taxes the most, the one who gives you the lowest energy prices, the best kind of energy, the one that keeps you out of wars … a few basics.'
The headlines were, inevitably, about the fact that the president had offered Starmer unsolicited advice that he needed to cut taxes and stop the boats. But of arguably far greater significance was Trump's acceptance of the premise of the question: that the next election would be a battle between Starmer and Farage. Badenoch and the Tories were not even part of the conversation.
The Tory leader did not have a meeting with Trump at his Turnberry golf course but is expected to meet him during his state visit. But the challenge for Badenoch is that Labour and Reform are both intent on squeezing the Tories out of the picture.
Sticking to the script
Labour is drawing up plans for its conference, and Reform is likely to feature heavily. Starmer will reprise his message on the need for growth at all costs — necessarily so, given the anaemic state of the economy and the scale of tax rises expected in the autumn budget. But Farage and Reform are likely to be a constant theme as Labour hones its attacks.
Those attacks are still largely based on three fronts: accusing Farage of trying to sell out the NHS, being a Putin stooge and promulgating fantasy economics with unfunded pledges.
Senior figures in government admit there is little evidence that the attacks are working, but argue that this is not the point. Labour believes that the messages it is embedding in the minds of voters now will come to the fore when the general election comes into view — when the prospect of Farage entering No 10 becomes a reality.
But what if they don't? After all, Rishi Sunak repeatedly said that voters would change their minds about him and the Conservatives during the white heat of the election campaign. The election result was even worse for him than had been expected.
The murmurings of discontent are growing louder. One senior Labour source said that 'you can't out-Reform Reform' by going tough on issues such as immigration — it doesn't wash with voters. The other fear is that giving Farage a platform and painting the idea that he could become prime minister risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy — that he might just do it.