White Van Man
Farage visited Ashton to campaign for Reform’s candidate, local plumber Rob Kenyon, a few hours before POLITICO held its focus group. It wasn’t an accident, in this traffic-heavy town, that Farage positioned his podium between two white vans, classic symbols of the self-employed British tradesperson.
Farage announced that if he became prime minister he would cut tax for electricians, plumbers and other self-employed people. “We are very much on the side of White Van Man,” Farage declared, as supporters and other interested locals watched his speech in the sunshine of a car park opposite a snooker club. His candidate, Kenyon, even released a campaign rap video on the theme of the man in his van.
But it’s not Farage’s policies that seem to have swelled his support so much as his style, which resonates with growing frustration among voters fed up with Britain’s gridlocked politics. Despite a private education and an early career spent as a City trader, he presents himself as the people’s champion, and while he isn’t personally popular, his hardline message on immigration certainly is.
Farage’s blunt and often angry critique of a “two tier” system in which privileged, “woke” elites in places like London take advantage of honest British workers elsewhere embodies the dismay and disillusionment of many voters who now just want to set fire to the whole system.
The gridlock is not just political, of course, but economic, too. Whoever is Labour’s leader will face the same problems of bond markets reluctant to trust the government with more debt, a welfare bill that is set to rise by perhaps 20 percent in the next five years, and a base of taxpayers already financially squeezed and reluctant to contribute more to the Treasury.
Polling a by-election is notoriously difficult — a reliable sample is hard to achieve and much depends on turnout, which can be impossible to predict. But polls so far do suggest Burnham can shake off his association with a deeply unpopular party to win. According to Public First’s research, Burnham’s relative popularity over Farage could also help him.