Love or loathe, Nigel Farage has shaped the last decade of British politics.

Few can top the influence this unelected individual has succeeded in peddling for the last decade, reshaping the country and the norms of our politics for the worse.

Nigel Farage is a fascinating political case study. What actually is he? How much did he really influence the Brexit debate? What are his ideological commitments? As this uniquely vile individual (for the 100th time) announces the end of his party political career with his resignation from Reform UK, this seems as good a time as ever to unpick and reckon with just how powerful Nigel Farage succeeded in being for the last 10 years of British politics, and just how influential he can make himself in the future in his new career as a rightwing influencer.

Nigel Farage isn’t particularly liked by a good 70% of people in this country, but for the other 30%, he’s a voice they value and respect, and according to them he speaks up for them when no one else does. Mr Farage has taken the art of the political con to new heights, with a unique set of favourable circumstances conspiring to hand this individual and his various political projects vast swathes of influence over the governing party.

This is the first thing I feel we need to clear up, because it’s an angle people don’t pick at often. Nigel Farage hasn’t been a success because a vast populist wave of support has flocked to him, and large majorities supporting or agreeing with him, quite the opposite; the antiquated system of first past the post to which we are all chained has been the enabler and the abettor of Farageism from Day 1.

Nigel Farage loomed large through the coalition years, because he directly threatened taking white older voters away from the Tories AND to a lesser extent Labour, in what we now call the red wall. This moulded the political consensus, forcing the Tories to concede to an EU referendum (this tipped the balance and prevented a Labour government) and causing Labour to ailenate most of its core support with “Controls On Immigration” mugs as some bizarre counter-strategy to fend off the Farage.

Under a proportional system, UKIP and Farage would have entered parliament with potentially a hefty number of seats, and almost certainly have been part of the next government after 2015’s election. At least that way the influence that odious man peddles would have been democratically legitimate, the way we’ve dealt with Farage has been the man moulding one of the two major parties in his image, rather than getting 15% or so for his own smaller party. Instead of a damning prospect of a Tory govt propped up by UKIP or the Brexit party, or Reform UK, we live within the unbearable reality that the Tory party itself is now what UKIP was 5 years ago. Much like Jeremy Corbyn on spending and taxation, when it comes to immigration, policing, and asylum policy, Nigel Farage won the argument.

This is evidenced in the reams of polling data that indicate while the British public is mercifully and surprisingly progressive on questions of economic policy, they’re pretty draconian on immigration, on refugees, and on things like the death penalty.

While Farage is too much for most people to stomach, majorities agree with policies he forced onto the agenda, and the Tory party is making hay with that, by positioning itself centrist (but window dressing as left) on economics, while clearly siding with the radical right on culture war issues, law and order, and immigration and asylum policy. Nigel Farage took the sort of socially liberal but economically rightwing Cameron years, and out emerges a socially conservative (by our comparatively liberal standards, not by US standards) but economically populist political blend that even in his wildest dreams he wouldn’t have imagined in govt a few years ago.

People may balk at this piece, and feel it’s some kind of perverse semi-defence or even admiration for Nigel Farage. Rest assured, it isn’t. Nigel Farage has done more than anyone since his proto-fascist idol Enoch Powell to dredge up old bigotries and hatreds, make them acceptable again, and shape politics for good with them. The most vulnerable have been consistency shat on by a former banker married to a European, who preached WW2 nonsense about Great Britain and exploited bigotry among older voters disguised as nostalgia. He deserves nothing but total contempt and condemnation, but unless we reckon with what he did, much like with Trump, he or his ideas will keep beating us.

Once again making that parallel, much like with Trump, the appeal of Farage is partially a cult-like connection with a charismatic and engaging speaker who channels people’s anger and rage at easy scapegoats. But the reason Farage, like Trump, finds enthusiastic reception not incredulity and rejection in parts of the country, is because the structural inequalities, injustices, and alimentation that blight our society have left far too many people feeling left behind, and turning to the worst corners of politics, and until we have a better world, or a politics that can manage to bring these people into the fold without pandering to bigotry and instead appealing to higher instincts while remaining populist and compelling, these issues will grow and grow.

What happens now? Well, I can’t really see a huge niche for Reform UK under Richard Tice, and it could certainly go the way of UKIP, into the death spiral of irrelevance. If the govt’s post-vaccine popularity holds up, they’ve cannibalised the political right, and I don’t see enough disillusioned rightwingers to empower a Reform UK polling surge. I don’t see a niche left for culture wars mixed with rightwing economics, the political tectonic plates have moved and our Boris+Brexit government now owns that space.

For Farage, he’s going to slot in nicely among the swamp creatures of the rightwing Turning Point type Americanised political influencer ecosystem. He’ll help further radicalise more and more people to the worst corners of politics, with a war on Europeans over, now a war declared upon the Chinese and the young, the two groups that seem to threaten Farage’s delicate snowflake-like attitude to progress pf any form whatsoever.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, but forgive me if I’m sceptical that this is the last party politics will hear of Nigel Farage.