Uneasy Déjà Vu
I have an unpleasant feeling of déjà vu washing over me, and rather like seasickness, a bad curry or a good laxative, it’s making me feel rather queasy.

It’s the same kind of feeling as having an endowment mortgage coming to term, around the time as all around you, the financial world burns.

I imagine it’s the same kind of sensation as being in a slow-motion car crash. You saw the black cat, hit the brakes, heard the squeal, and now, as the grim inevitability of it all sinks in, you are braced for impact. You know it will hurt; the only variable is how much.

Laughing Last?
How people laughed at me when I said I felt it in my waters that Trump would get elected, and then, Brexit was a done deal. They’re not laughing now. Well, only the deluded who think they have had the last laugh. But the joke’s on them.

Farage: Not a Comedic Figure
The thing is, and while only a few years back this would have been considered comedy gold, if Nigel Farage is elected PM, I think it will be a long time before anyone is laughing again, if ever. If ever again.

As I keep saying, we underestimate Mr Farage at our peril; he is not some cheeky City chappie, nor a Boulting Brothers buffoon, he is not Nigel from accounts made good and dressed for the hunt ball. He is a political Pied Piper.

Stateless in My Own Country
While I have felt politically homeless for some time now, in the last few weeks, I have started to feel stateless too, as the country I love seems confused in extremis, experiencing some crisis of identity while at the same time suffering from political schizophrenia.

I’m not embarrassed to be British, and never will be, but I am embarrassed by too many who so proudly proclaim to be more British than British with their so-called “British” values. So much so, I no longer recognise my own country.

Class, Lies, and Austerity
Don’t piss in my pocket and tell me it’s raining, nor tell me it’s a class thing, for my working-class roots run deep. It’s nothing to do with that. No, it’s classless, with whole tranches of society united and homogenised by poverty and neglect, whilst they choose to neglect that fact.

Facts, the truth, logic, common sense, it’s an inconvenient truth that those values left the station long ago. It may be true that the NHS is in crisis, our infrastructure is falling apart, and there is not enough housing. Yet it has little to do with too many people and all to do with not having enough investment.

No amount of flag waving will change that, no matter where, how high, or how proudly, or codedly, or indeed ironically you fly the Union Jack.

Populations grow, that’s what they do; you just have to plan, adapt, and deal with it, and you do that by investing in people, skills and infrastructure. Yet we were sold a lie, like find-the-lady, austerity was under every cup, and we all fell for the trick.

Scapegoats and Petri Dishes
Fed on a diet of lies, mistruths and new facts, it’s much easier to invent new enemies than admit you’ve been hoodwinked at the fair. Immigrants and immigration are not to blame for the mess we all find ourselves in.

The idea that Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells is waiting for haemorrhoid treatment because poor old Mohamed of Musa Qala paddled across the channel in search of a better life is a lie. He is not the cause of the pain in your ass; politicians are.

No. The blame lies dead and festering at the feet of austerity, that and the ever-growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, the workers and the CEOs. Austerity, the hate that dares to speak its name, well, for most anyway.

If people were the petri dish, austerity the culture, then Farage and his ilk are the populist bacteria spreading like plague bacillus.

Herds of Confused Rats
Groupthink, herd mentality, political apathy, will of the people, call it what you will, we’re all confused, we’re all scared rats in a maze, scrabbling to find the emergency exit and susceptible to lies, especially if the truth is so unpalatable.

It is not political weasel words, the political weasel that Farage commands, for there is no ambiguity in his vision, as he milks the crowd, fans the fires, and works the room, all the while cheered on by factions of the right-wing media.

They are willing accomplices in his doublespeak duplicity, and while they know they are playing with fire, they don’t think they will get their fingers burned. They never do. Even so, I can’t help but think of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Media Monsters
The media that so willingly gives Farage the oxygen of publicity is well aware that it’s creating a monster; it’s just that they believe they can tame the beast. Have they never seen a horror film? It never ends well. Am I scared? You bet I am.

To the flag-waving faithful and political cosplayers at the horror show Reform party conference, come comic con, “Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.”

Unpleasant Repeat
Once again, here I am, that same unpleasant feeling over a vote. Do I fear Farage as PM? Yes. For so many reasons, but mainly for this. It was the same wool that was pulled over the eyes of the Brexit vote.

Too many people who voted for Brexit voted for a unicorn, the notion and hope that on the morning after they cast their vote, all the problems would vanish like the mist of a foggy English dawn in some charming idyllic television show.

The delusion that when they woke (woke being the operative word), it would be the 1950s, yet not the real version of rationing and social intolerance and tuberculosis, of course, but a syrupy amalgamation, a cute composite Ovaltine television caricature created by period dramas such as Heartbeat, Call the Midwife and The Royal.

That this nation, this septic isle, would somehow reset and revert to some fictional version of England, populated with cheerful bobbies on the beat, happy stationmasters, gay midwives and jovial postmen in an idealist version of this green and pleasant land.

The Fantasy of the Past
A vision of thatched cottages and country pubs as Nick Berry, balancing a dimpled pint jug of bitter in one hand, would cycle past, whistling the Dam Busters march, while, just like television at the time, there would be few faces of colour. But we can’t turn back the clock, and who would want to?

Farage tapped into that zeitgeist; it’s only natural, after all, we all want a better life, yet ironically, we demonise those who just want the same. Is that not what all refugees want? And who can blame them? Have they not been sold a similar lie?

The grass is always greener when you are trapped in poverty as TV and social media pump out an idealised version of the Western wet dream, free speech, free housing, free money and Coca-Cola. No wonder they flock here in small boats.

Populist Utopia
Drawn like moths to the fire in the same way that voters are captivated by Farage’s populist utopia. The truth is drowning in lies, yet all the political class and politicians seem to do is argue over the seating plan of the deck chairs and ignore the facts that the ship is sinking.

Labour is imploding, Jeremy Corbyn will split the vote, speed up the process, and spoil the broth, even worse, the Tories are invisible and irrelevant. Kemi Badenoch could stand atop a huge funeral pyre in Parliament Square, and most of the population would neither care nor notice.

All the while, Pied Piper plays his pipes and charms the disillusioned. Blows his dog whistle and calls the angry. We will never beat Farage at his own game; the sooner the right and left realise that a unified middle ground is the fight zone, the better.

The Time Machine Promise
Anyway, Matt Johnson of The The put it far better than I ever can in the lyrics of their seminal 80s song Heartland. “Well it ain’t written in the papers, but it’s written on the walls”, “The way this country is divided to fall”.

What Farage is promising from his populist pulpit is a time machine, not policies; if he knows that he is a liar, if he does not, he’s an idiot, and at this stage, I don’t know what’s worse. Either way, we all lose.