Farage Tells Packed Rally The People’s Army is Changing the Course of British History Again

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, center, arrives to speak to local residents during a to
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Oliver JJ Lane

Brexit leader Nigel Farage said it was time to fuse the traditional with the radical as he appealed to respect Britain’s history and culture while saving the nation with major reform at a packed rally in Clacton on Tuesday night.

Addressing a hall of supporters after mounting the stage to what has become his campaign anthem, Eminem’s Without Me — making good use of its lyrics “guess who’s back, back again” in a plain nod to his return from political retirement — Nigel Farage announced a mass defection of local Conservative politicians to his Reform Party on Tuesday. While the comings and goings of local councillors may not normally make national news, several Reform candidates and spokesmen have told Breitbart News in recent days that converting the present energy around the party into a permanent grass-roots campaigning organisation ready to fight in 2029 is very much core to the plan.

The party has made clear it hopes to attract many more defecting Conservative and Labour local politicians once the dust has settled on next month’s national elections, and then to take more in the Spring 2025 local elections.

In the precise populist rhetoric of Nigel Farage — who makes a point of spurning the political jargon of the legacy establishment — this grassroots machine he’s trying to build is his “people’s army”. Speaking at a packed theatre that he likened to a Billy Graham revival meeting, Mr Farage cited the old campaigners of the former UKIP party as part of the reason he made the surprise decision to change course and stand again.

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, speaks to local residents during a town hall general election campaign event in Clacton-on-Sea, UK, on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Brexit architect Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party continued its advance, logging a rating of 14.4%, a fresh record, while the Liberal Democrats led by Ed Davey are on 10.6%, their highest level of the campaign. Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, signs placards after speaking to local residents during a town hall general election campaign event in Clacton-on-Sea, UK, on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Brexit architect Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party continued its advance, logging a rating of 14.4%, a fresh record, while the Liberal Democrats led by Ed Davey are on 10.6%, their highest level of the campaign. Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage arrives at Princes Theatre in Clacton, while on the General Election campaign trail. Picture date: Tuesday June 18, 2024. (Photo by Ian West/PA Images via Getty Images)

Appealing to his successful campaign to take Britain out of the European Union in the years running to 2016, never mind his bringing down two British Prime Ministers, Farage said:  “I was the head of a movement with millions and millions of supporters and with that support we changed the course of British history, and I felt I just cannot let these people down. I cannot let my people down”.

Farage said more was yet to come: “I’m going to do it, and with your help we will once again change the future of British history.”
His return from retirement is not a “short term commando raid by me” but a “major commitment”, Farage said, telling his supporters: “what we must do is establish that bridgehead in parliament. We are going to do it, be in no doubt. And then spend the next five years getting ready to fight the 2029 General Election as a party that believes it can win that general election and put our country back on track. That’s the aim”.

As European politics continues its glacial shift from the left-right divide to a new populist-globalist paradigm, Mr Farage also addressed one of the shallow contradictions in the populist position, saying the party, its supporters, and policies must fuse respect for tradition with the will to change for the better. He said: “I really do believe we can be at the same time, traditional and radical. Traditional because we respect our past… [but] when the patient is seriously ill, the solution is radical surgery. And our country needs radical surgery, a complete rethink of the way we do public services.”

Establishing some areas where the most rapid change is needed, the Reform leader said: “surely we’ve got to get back to sensible policing, we’ve got to get back to law and order, we’ve got to get back to education that teaches kids the good and bad side of our history. Our institutions are rotten, they don’t work, our electoral system doesn’t work.”

Farage’s media team were eager to point out he may be the only politician in the country who could pack out a theatre at such short notice. Certainly, while the meeting would be seen as very small by American standards, organic local meetings on such a scale have been rare in the United Kingdom for decades, in part because of the centralisation of the large parties.

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