The doyens of the free market are
usually keen to push what they salute as the emancipatory essence of unfettered
economic exchange, a voluntaristic state of affairs that is also regarded as a
crucial guarantor of individual and civic freedoms. Conversely critics of this
market ontology (Polanyi, 1944) argue that markets have been mythologised and
reified above and beyond their historical and social context. Furthermore it
can also be contended that markets can also be deployed as coercive instruments
and weaponised against sections of the population. Thatcherism’s liberatory
credo was also a paradoxical moment of foreclosure in the counsel of There Is
No Alternative (TINA).
Faragism’s latter-day
alternative to mainstream politics has certainly been happy to double down on
neoliberal orthodoxy in its exultation of the low tax small state and its
denigration of ‘high national debt, wasteful government spending and nanny
state regulations’ (Reform UK: Our contract with you). Opposition to Net Zero
and woke ideology has been fused with the heresy of opposition to mass
immigration which has provided Farage with his crucial niche of ‘respectable’
dissension to liberal cosmopolitanism. This has also been reinforced by a
post-Covid critique of the emergency state interventionism witnessed during the
pandemic and the fierce anti-collectivist tirades of other Reform MPs and
activists. And Farage is also a long standing critic of the NHS in which he has
argued needs to be replaced by a system based on private insurance.
This however sits in a peculiar
position alongside the recourse to what might be labelled Farage’s Trumpist
perorations. Bastani has saluted the ‘French-style dirigisme’ (Bastani, 2024)
of Reform’s 50% public ownership plans for the utilities, whilst Farage has
made a recent high profile case for the nationalisation of British Steel. So
will the real Nigel Farage please stand up? Perhaps we should take our cues
from some of Reform’s lieutenants or exes such as Rupert Lowe who has served as
a veritable ideologue of free market militancy. Then there was the obvious
love-in between Farage and Liz Truss, who welcomed her highly controversial
2022 mini budget alongside other Hayekian radicals. Arguably Reform is
indulging in postliberal heterodoxy mindful that Thatcherism might also be
equally repellent to so-called left behind red wallers.
References:
Bastani, A (2024) ‘Nigel Farage
Has Spotted a Major Gap in the Political Market’, Novara Media, 21 June
Available at:
https://novaramedia.com/2024/06/21/nigel-farage-has-spotted-a-major-gap-in-the-political-market/
Accessed 03/05/25
Guardian staff (2022) ‘Great
divide: pundits’ reactions to mini-budget run from alarmed to delighted’, The
Guardian, 25 September
Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/25/great-divide-pundits-reactions-to-mini-budget-run-from-alarmed-to-delighted
Accessed 03/05/25
Polanyi, K (1944), The Great
Transformation’. Penguin Books.
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