Nigel Farage’s Rise and the Myth of Political Accountability

The biggest Brexit donor, stockbroker Peter Hargreaves, gave £3.2 million to the leave campaign. He justified his enthusiasm by saying: “We will get out there and we will become incredibly successful because we will be insecure again. And insecurity is fantastic.” A current television advertisement for his co-founded company, Hargreaves Lansdown, portrays the firm as a safe haven amid disruptive change, citing Brexit as an example.

The notion of accountability—that those who harm us face punishment while benefactors are rewarded—stands as a poignant political folk tale. In reality, neither business nor politics operates this way. A more reliable rule is that those who generate insecurity profit from it.

In early 1915, newspaper owner Benito Mussolini incited riots demanding Italy’s entry into World War I, threatening revolution if the government refused, and calling neutrality shameful. Italy joined the war in May, disastrously unprepared. The resulting national humiliation and “mutilated victory” opened the door for the fascists, led by Mussolini himself.

In spring 1940, Britain’s first lord of the admiralty, Winston Churchill, oversaw chaotic planning and extreme indecision in Norway, leading to Allied failure against Nazi Germany. The military disaster triggered Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s resignation. Chamberlain was replaced by Churchill—the very architect of the failure. It may have been the right decision, but it came through peculiar means.

Few figures bear more blame for Britain’s current sense of decline than Nigel Farage. He was to Brexit what Mussolini was to Italy’s entry into World War I. Like that rightwing figure, Farage promised miracles with a policy that instead delivered misery and retreat.

Farage has not been punished by the electorate. Austerity enabled Brexit, as public fury at decline spurred a kick at the system. Austerity plus Brexit fueled his Reform UK party. Further decline and insecurity benefit those who channel rage toward scapegoats: immigrants, asylum seekers, Muslims, and woke “elites.” If Farage becomes prime minister in 2029, his Brexit disaster will be a major reason.

As Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue in “Democracy for Realists,” voters have almost no capacity for attribution. The theory of retrospective voting—judging candidates on their records—is a fairytale. People vote based on wellbeing changes but “consistently and systematically punish incumbents for conditions beyond their control.” They estimate 2.8 million people voted against Al Gore in 2000 due to local weather, including Florida, which decided the election—ironic given the climate policy contrast between Gore and winner George W. Bush.

Farage will likely shrug off the undeclared £5 million from a crypto billionaire before he stood for election in 2024. Voters will not punish his party for expected dismal local government failures. People have a powerful sense of justice, but busy lives and constant crises leave no mental space to keep receipts—driving cynicism that “they always get away with it.”

The more crises we face, the less accountable politics becomes. Boris Johnson sometimes triggered new crises to distract from old ones; Donald Trump does the same. The more dysfunctional life becomes, the more he can claim to be the nation’s saviour—like pushing someone into a pond to enact a dramatic rescue.

Our political system is premised on accountability—a brilliant theory with no relation to reality. Those believing the fairytale lose elections. The winning formula is not listing achievements or attacking opponents, but demonstrating hope. You flatter existing voters and attract new ones with a powerful story of transformation, spending big on public services to show life is improving.

This is the exact opposite of the UK government’s approach. Self-defeating fiscal rules suppress growth Labour claims to prioritize and damage perceptions of wellbeing, reinforcing hopelessness and decline. The leadership flatters a political base it does not possess, appealing instead to “hero voters” it thinks it can lure from the right—voters described as “almost entirely mythical.” By sacrificing itself to these wraiths, Labour alienates its own base.

Labour reinforces alienation with deliberate “hippy punching”: demonstrating macho, pro-capital credentials by ripping down environmental protections, banning protests, cutting benefits, and launching performative attacks on immigrants. A basic rule: hate people and they will hate you back.

The animating force of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s team is extreme hostility to the Labour left, brought into government as a national programme. Instead of inspiring or delighting, it points to Farage’s record and threatens that if voters don’t back Labour, they will get what’s coming to them.

Starmer subscribes to a mythic conception of politics, describing a planet other than our own. When he goes—after two wasted years—his replacement should understand how this business works.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist.