Nigel Farage did a press conference this morning in which he decided that he was once-again right wing. Here is the summary: 1. The Tories have betrayed everyone time and time again on immigration. Correct. However, Reform's "net zero" policy isn't much better and Farage seems to think the... Boriswave and the 200k illegals ought to stay as he has made no noise about them going home.show more

2. An excess of foreign labour suppresses domestic wages. Obviously correct, and would suggest that, in fact, the millions the Tories betrayed us with ought to go home. Farage does not say this, however.

3. "Mind-blowing" numbers of migrants don't even work, costing us billions in benefits. Yes, demonstrably, and one might think that remigrating them back to their countries of origin would be a good idea. Farage doesn't actually assert this, however.

4. The excess of foreign labour has destroyed GDP per capita wage growth. Obviously true, mass migration is a capitalist plot against the native population.

5. Nigel is for discrimination of some kinds of migrants against others. Farage points out that he is for some immigration and not other kinds of immigration, depending on the quality of the migrants. This will be naturally considered a form of racism, which Nigel fails to address and, later on, claims that Reform is not a racist party.

6. The overpopulation problem is the source of the housing shortage, leading to a massive increase in house prices and rent. Trivially and, again, obviously true, but it isn't illegal immigrants buying houses, it is legal immigrants. Nigel doesn't address this issue, and doesn't suggest that legal immigrants who have been let into Britain and who are pricing our young people off the housing market ought to be returned home.

7. Farage points out that we have imported 100,000 doctors and nurses, poaching them from developing countries. True. The neo-colonial resource extraction of skilled labour from our unofficial colonies is bad for them, but Nigel's framing leaves out the British people who would have liked to become doctors and nurses but can't because the demand is filled by foreign labour.

8. The NHS is completely overburdened by foreigners who prevent British people from getting seen in a timely manner. True.

9. The "Turkish" barber shops are actually fronts for organised crime. True, and to his credit he was talking about this a few months ago and got mocked for it. It's basically the only issue he had been ahead of the curve on.

10. The publication of crime statistics by nationality is a good thing but caused the rise of right-wing parties in Europe. Nigel condemns these parties and does not want to be associated with them, but paradoxically he is glad that the statistics will be published here where they might have the same result.

11. Mass immigration has caused the import of sectarian politics into England, and this is a bad thing. It would seem that the only way to avoid sectarian politics would be to remove one community or the other, else what prevents them from fighting? Nigel offers no solution.

12. Nigel tweeted out that he would create a Minister for Deportations. This seems like a gimmick as the UK government is perfectly capable of deporting people, as Starmer has recently bragged about. Given Nigel's previous opposition to the concept of "mass deportations" and his unwillingness to have his name attached to such a term, it seems odd that he would U-turn on it and wish to make it

In summary, it seems that because Labour have been tacking right in their political expression lately, and Robert Jenrick has been pushing English identity quite hard, Farage feels that he has to try and outflank them by repeating basically verbatim the talking points of the online right. It seems cynical and unlikely to represent his true beliefs. He is never at the front of the pack on this issue, and as always, leads from the rear, moving into open ground after it has been cleared by other more insightful thinkers and then claiming the field of victory. I doubt anything will come of it, and it seems likely Farage will flip back to weak centrism when it is convenient. Call me cynical, but I don't think this is going anywhere.

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