Ukraine, Israel, empire and capital: where the rebellion should begin, Farage’s alternative ends in complete continuity
Britain is a tired country. Not (only) in a sentimental sense, but in a political one. The two major parties that have traded places in government for decades have become so similar that the difference between them often comes down to tone, never to direction. The Conservatives lost, after Brexit, the historic mission they themselves had opened up; Labour long ago abandoned working-class politics and turned itself into the administrative wing of the liberal centre, while the British voter — especially one outside the wealthy London circle — increasingly feels like an audience being served the same play over and over with different actors. In such a space, Nigel Farage looks like someone coming “from outside.” That is his greatest political strength — and his greatest deception.
Farage has long ceased to be a marginal phenomenon. Reform UK stands at 25% support in the latest YouGov poll from July 5–6, 2026, ahead of the Conservatives at 21% and Labour at 20%. Farage has, at least in the polls, shattered the traditional order and forced Westminster to take him seriously. But this is precisely where the more important part of the story begins: not every departure from the establishment is proof that an alternative is being born. Sometimes it’s just a way for the old order to let off steam before the pot explodes.
Farage’s talent has never been to design a new Britain. His talent lies in sensing, with great precision, where anger exists, and then channeling it toward an enemy who is politically useful but systemically harmless. The European Union, migrants, “woke” bureaucrats, the media, activists, courts, international conventions — these are all targets Farage hits with great efficiency. But as soon as we touch on questions of economic ownership, class power, financial capital, NATO, the American alliance, or Israel, his rebellion suddenly becomes much quieter, more cautious, and more recognizable.
The fastest way to assess whether a politician is a real alternative or just a new label on an old bottle is to look at two things — economics and foreign policy. Farage fails both tests. Reform UK presents itself as the voice of ordinary Britons, but its official economic reflexes remain deeply Thatcherite: cut taxes, cut regulation, unburden business, make the state “leaner” and harsher toward those who depend on social benefits. On its official website, the party openly talks about cutting bureaucracy and business taxes, creating a “pro-enterprise” environment, and turning Britain into “the best place to start and run a business.” This is not a break with the neoliberal order. It is its return in crude populist packaging.
In other words, the worker is offered more frequent flag-waving, while capital gets a tax break. The voter is told that migration ruined his life, not the economic model that for decades privatized profit, socialized losses, destroyed industrial communities, and handed whole regions over to the real-estate market, finance, and precarious service work.
It would be especially interesting to see — and if he ever comes to power, we will see it — how he would create a “pro-enterprise” Britain without relying on mass migration. Because it is precisely “big business” that drives and craves this, and Farage knows it, he just pretends not to. With that in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising if “Farage’s Britain” started delivering even more cheap labor to big capital, now with an even greater dose of exploitation, that is, with less protection.
It is no accident that independent fiscal analyses have already described the Reform program as a combination of large tax cuts, large promises, and unconvincing funding sources. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned back in 2024 that Reform UK proposes tax cuts of nearly £90 billion a year plus an additional £50 billion in spending, claiming this would be paid for by £150 billion in cuts “elsewhere,” while estimating that the spending cuts would yield less than the party claims and the tax cuts would cost more. Tax Policy Associates concluded at the time that Reform’s personal tax cuts were underestimated and that their real cost would be at least £88 billion. This is the old British fantasy: we’ll cut taxes, increase the power of the state where it needs to punish, and public finances will somehow sort themselves out.
Even more interesting is Farage’s relationship to foreign policy. Part of his appeal comes from the fact that he occasionally sounds like someone who dares to say what others aren’t allowed to. His statements about NATO and EU expansion eastward, and his claim that the West “provoked” Russia, drew condemnation from the British establishment. But that doesn’t mean Farage offers an anti-imperial or peace-oriented policy. His problem with British foreign policy isn’t that it’s imperial, but that, in his view, it’s insufficiently effective, insufficiently sovereign, and too constrained by liberal institutions. And what if it became “sovereign”? Does that mean it would keep doing the same thing as now, just with “more autonomy”?
Because official Reform UK talks about rebuilding the British armed forces, “peace through strength,” and the need for the British military to be “ready for the threats posed by Russia and China.” In that formulation there is no break at all with the logic of NATO, no serious questioning of Britain’s role in the American-led order, and, of course, no acknowledgment that Britain itself lived for centuries off imperial power and its consequences. Chatham House noted in 2025 that Reform’s foreign policy remains unclear precisely where a future government would need answers — Ukraine, European security, relations with the US, China, and Russia. In the meantime, Farage even supported Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership, even though he had earlier spoken of provocation through NATO and EU expansion. That is not a coherent peace doctrine. It is political maneuvering. Farage knows that Britain’s working class is embittered and does not support war; he sells them one thing, while saying another with less media exposure.
Farage’s “sovereignty” is certainly not the sovereignty of the people against capital, but the sovereignty of the British state against legal constraints. He doesn’t want a weaker imperial core, but freer hands for a nation-state that would deport or bring in people, punish, negotiate regardless of conventions, and deal with great powers from a position of old British self-importance.
Israel and Gaza further expose the limits of Farage’s supposed alternative. When the British government moved toward recognizing a Palestinian state, Farage said he did not support that at the moment and that such a move would “reward terrorism.” A typical statement for understanding the British right-wing alternative: it will talk endlessly about free speech, sovereignty, and opposition to elites, but as soon as the question of Israeli military power and Palestinian suffering comes up, it retreats into the safe language of the Western establishment. There is no courage here. There is discipline.
Here it’s worth briefly mentioning Tommy Robinson as well. He is a more brutal, raw, street-level expression of the same broader phenomenon, though he is not the same political category as Farage. Robinson presents himself as a man against the system, an enemy of the liberal consensus, and a voice for a suppressed Britain. But when he spoke in Tel Aviv in October 2025, before an audience that included members of the Israeli government, he criticized British recognition of Palestine, praised Israel, and even attacked Farage for “not being a sufficiently reliable friend of Israel.” Robinson also said at the time that Reform could win the next election, but that Farage needs to be “pushed” in the right direction. That’s a telling detail — the far right that swears rebellion against the establishment is, in fact, demanding that Farage align even more firmly with Israel.
Britain is thus filling up with alternatives that are not alternatives at all. Some wear a suit and speak the language of “common sense,” others carry street-level anger and offer political hysteria, but both end up in a similar place — against social rights, against international constraints when they get in the way of one’s own state, but not against capital, not against NATO as a structure of power, not against Israeli impunity, and definitely not against the financial architecture that has turned Britain into a country of wealthy enclaves and impoverished peripheries.
Farage is much more effective than an ordinary conservative because he understands that the old language no longer works. He knows the voter no longer wants to hear technocratic phrases about growth, competitiveness, and responsible governance. So he gives the voter something else instead: a story of betrayal, humiliation, and the return of control. But behind that story the same economic skeleton remains. Under Farage, Britain might be louder, rougher, and more willing to clash with European institutions, but it would not be more just. It would not be less subordinate to big capital. It would not be less militarized, and it would not be less tied to the Anglo-American order.
For some, this is a reason for apathy. If even Reform is an empty alternative, then what? Above all, it’s up to the British to work that out; in this context, we are merely observers.
A real alternative is not measured by how loudly someone shouts at the BBC, Brussels, or the Labour government. It is measured by whether it touches the sacred cornerstones of the order: profit, empire, the military alliance, colonial impunity, and the class structure of society. Farage does not touch these cornerstones. He defends them in a different vocabulary. That is why he must not be underestimated, but even less should he be romanticized. He is not the exception through which new politics enters. He is the valve through which the old order tries to survive its own crisis.
About the Author
Mario Hoffmann is an independent analyst and writer covering global economics, geopolitics, and international affairs. With a background in history and politics, he writes for EconoPuls to provide in-depth context on the stories shaping our world.
