Brexit leader Nigel Farage has turned his fire on Britain’s left, launching his election party platform in longstanding Labour stronghold Wales and pitching to be the defender of the working clast strivers against globalist giants and the establishment parties that serve them.
Reform UK held its “contract” launch event in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales on Monday afternoon, making clear while it acknowledged the new party wasn’t ready to challenge for the outright leadership of the United Kingdom in this election, it is fighting to establish a bridgehead in Parliament to make that bid at the next election in 2029.
While Farage’s campaign to this point has focussed on the governing Conservatives, their polling has collapsed to such historic lows the Brexit leader appears to have switched his campaign to the likely next government, Labour. Launching his contract with the people — Farage refuses to call it a ‘manifesto’, usual British English for a party platform, given he says the term is simply associated with ‘lies’ by voters given the behaviour of the establishment parties — in South Wales is meant as a big message for Labour voters.
Farage has long made clear his party is not — as it is often characterised by the legacy media — a pressure group on the Conservatives, but is an electoral threat to Labour’s traditional working class voters too. Making that pitch for those communities, who in so many cases have been ‘left behind’ by the relentless march of globalism, Farage said on Monday: “we’re a party that knows what we believe in. We get the fundamental principle of what we’re about. We believe in the family, we believe in the community, we believe in the country… we’re for controlled borders, we’re for genuine economic growth.
“Helping the little guy, millions of men and women out there trying to get on, trying to do their thing, and yet a Labour and Conservative party that only ever listens to the giant global corporates. We’re about trying to restore some trust in politics. You might dislike what we say, you might not want to vote for what we say, but at least we do say what we mean. And we want to have an absolutely radical rethink of the way our public services are run, and yes that includes the National Health Service.”
In all, Farage said, he was proposing policies that “are discriminatory in favour of British taxpayers and British people” and this was nothing less than “what a good, sensible country should do”, saying much of what he proposed was no less than what already happened every day in an Anglo country like Australia, for instance.
Another key point emphasised in the course of the event was the long-term plan. He acknowledged that the contract put forward today couldn’t be a programme for government given his brand new party was not yet ready to challenge for Downing Street. But nevertheless it was in the running to be the opposition, and for Farage to lead what the BBC said Monday morning could be a “centre-right coalition” to hold the likely incoming left-wing government to account.
Farage said: “this election is for this party and for me the first important step on the road to 2029. Our aim and our ambition is to establish a bridgehead in Parliament and become a real opposition to a Labour government… our aim is to provide clear, consistent, and growing leadership during the course of the next Parliament… it’s my aim that we turn this into a big, genuine, mass movement of people and I believe that is actually highly achievable.”