Is Nigel Farage the strongman who could deliver fascism to the UK? Or is that the wrong way to understand the danger he represents?

In this video, I examine what fascism actually requires: ideology, discipline, institutions, and the willingness to rule. By those standards, Farage fails the test.

But that does not make him harmless. Farage's role is not to govern, but to corrode democracy, normalise cruelty, and weaken trust in institutions. Fascism often arrives after the wreckers, like him, have done their work.

This is a video about why getting this distinction right matters, and why Farage remains a serious threat even without the qualities of a fascist leader.

This is the audio version:

This is the transcript:

A question occurred to me the other day. I asked myself, is Nigel Farage the strong man who will deliver fascism to the UK? Because it seemed to me that he was anything but a strong man, and that's why I've asked the question. And it matters because if we get the answer wrong, we either panic needlessly or  fail to see the real danger that Farage represents. So let's be clear,  precise, and honest whilst trying to answer this question.

When people talk about fascism, they usually imagine one thing: a strong man - it has always been a man so far - a charismatic leader, a ruthless figure with clear vision, iron discipline, and a willingness to use brutality to impose control.  That image comes from history. Mussolini, Hitler, Franco. So the test is straightforward. Does Farage fit that model?

Historically, fascism depends on four things.

First, a coherent ideological project: a worldview explaining nation, hierarchy, and power.

Secondly, a leader who demands discipline and sacrifice, and not just applause.

Third, there is an obsession with institutions. Courts, police, bureaucracy, the economy, all of these are rigidly controlled.

And fourth, a willingness to govern brutally day after day. Fascism is about rule and not protest.

By these standards, Nigel Farage is not a fascist strongman.

He has no coherent ideology; he only has slogans.

"  Stop the boats" is not a governing philosophy.

"Net-zero madness" explains nothing.

His politics are grievance-driven, not structured. When examined, they collapse into contradiction.

Fascist leaders demand submission and sacrifice. Farage does the opposite; he offers indulgence. Permission to resent. Permission to blame. He entertains rather than commands.  He's a pub-room populist. He's not an imposer of authoritarian discipline,  although he has been quite good at losing MPs because he's fallen out with them.

Farage does not build institutions, and again, that indication that he loses MPs is clear evidence of that. UKIP, the Brexit Party, Reform: all of these are personal vehicles, and all of them are hollowed out, and crucially, he has avoided power. When responsibility has loomed, he has so often retreated,  usually into media roles. He's actually walked away,  even from his own parties, when there has been a situation where something might have been demanded from him.

He prefers the microphone to any form of ministry, and that alone disqualifies him from the fascist strong man role. He's clearly not built for it, but please don't take reassurance from this. We could, at this point, make a dangerous mistake. That's because authoritarian politics today does not need a single great leader. It does not arrive with a manifesto for dictatorship.  It arrives by corrosion, by weakening trust, by normalising cruelty, and by treating law and rights as inconveniences.

In that context, we have to understand Farage. His role is not to rule, and I do wonder whether he ever will. His role is instead to make certain ideas feel acceptable. That migrants are threats, that courts are enemies of the people, that human rights are luxuries we can no longer afford, that there are skivers in our society who must be scapegoated. His job is not to see fascism completed. It is to remove democratic restraint so that fascism might happen.

And in this context,  note his lies, and that Farage never explains. He never explains how he will address falling living standards. He never explains what he will do about failing public services, except to cut them even further. He never explains rent extraction, financialisation, or wage suppression.   Instead, he promotes economic anger, which is directed sideways against others, migrants in the main, and not upwards, where, of course, it should be directed because that's where the fault lies. That is how authoritarian politics gains ground.

And this is important because the fascists arrive after the wreckers.  They inherit societies where institutions are already distrusted, where parliaments are seen as illegitimate, where cruelty has been morally licensed.  Farage is a wrecker. He's helping create that landscape without the discipline to rule it.

So let's be exact. Farage is not a fascist strongman. He lacks the vision, the discipline, and the governing intent to be that. But his politics are still dangerous. They are deliberately weakening democracy.  They are legitimising exclusion. They are promoting hate. They do make authoritarianism feel reasonable.

Fascism does not always arrive, shouting orders. Sometimes it arrives when fear, exhaustion, and institutional decay make repression feel like relief. Farage brings that moment closer, not through grand design, but through persistent corrosive irresponsibility. That's what he delivers, and that is why he matters.

His irresponsibility is confronting us.

He is confronting the politics that we require, the politics of something better: an economy of care with real explanations and real hope. He has none of those, and yet he is a massive threat to our well-being, precisely because he stands in the way of us realising our dreams.

What do you think? There's a poll down below.

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