Does Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York signal that Nigel Farage’s bubble is about to burst? - David Behrens

Look, it’s been another bruising week for politicians of all shades but on Monday it became clear that Farage, for all his Elon Musk theatrics about chainsawing bureaucracy, is no different to the mainstream parties he claims to despise.

Two days before Rachel Reeves dropped hints about tax rises to come, he was doing exactly the same thing – backtracking on his earlier promises to cut £90bn of taxes should he ever win office.

It was only ever “an aspiration”, he bleated, before resorting to the time-honoured tradition of blaming everyone else for leaving an even bigger mess than he thought.

He also refused to guarantee preserving the pensions triple-lock which insulates those of us in, let’s call it very late middle-age, from the effects of inflation.

So with no money on the table, what is Reform even offering to voters whose worldview goes beyond which way up to hang a Union Jack?

It is exactly six months since an apathetically low turnout and disenchantment with Labour’s early policies – not least among pensioners and agricultural communities – overturned decades of traditional loyalties and handed Reform control of 12 councils and two mayoralties. That’s long enough to be judged on what they’ve delivered so far, and it is this: a big, fat two-fingered salute to every person who trusted them.

James Buchan realised this sooner than most. He secured his seat for Reform on Dartford Council in a July by-election but last weekend defected to the Conservatives having seen at first hand the Farage facade.

The signs were already there: overt racism, blatant hypocrisy and plain incompetence. But what tipped Buchan over the edge was his former leader’s plan to retrospectively strip thousands of Britons of their indefinite leave to remain here – a gimmick lawyers said would never get through the courts in any case.

“The more I saw of Reform UK, the more uncomfortable I felt to be part of it,” said Buchan. He had wanted to improve life for local families but discovered Reform had neither the experience or ambition. It had only hot air.

His parting shot foresees how we would all feel if Farage ever came to power, for his experience is far from unique. Last month a leaked video showed Reform’s leader in Kent swearing at councillors from her own party and telling them to “suck it up” if they didn’t agree with her. Five other Reform councillors were expelled in the aftermath.

Meanwhile, the Reform mayor for Hull and East Yorkshire, the professional boxer and amateur politician Luke Campbell, made a fool of himself by saying this in a debate on his region’s burgeoning renewable energy sector: “Who doesn’t like cleaner air and green energy? I do.” I’ll tell you who doesn’t like it, Luke: your own party. Reform wants to do away with the UK’s net-zero target and slap more taxes on the whole sector. So whose side are you on?

In fact, Campbell’s only tangible achievement after six months in the job has been for his own benefit: a swanky new office overlooking Hull Marina. “It’s a fantastic building in a great setting,” he said. Bully for you, mate, but what good is that to the rest of us? And how does it square with that other Reform policy of chainsawing council expenditure?

Currently the number of councillors to have fled Reform since May stands at just over three dozen and perhaps the most damning indictment of its performance comes from one of them, Nicole Brooke, who was kicked out after challenging its leadership in Northumberland. This is a family newspaper so I will have to leave out the excremental noun she used to characterise an organisation which she said was “run like the Mafia”.

She went on: “I thought we could make Reform balanced, sensible and not extreme. It is extreme. We were promised it was going to be professionalised, but we have had no training, nothing from head office – we have just been left. There’s no infrastructure, no senior management.”

That is the reality behind the rhetoric and sooner or later everyone – even the ones with flags on their faces and flagpoles coming out of their ears – will see that they have been taken for fools.

In New York and The Hague, that sense is already palpable and the timing couldn’t be worse for Nigel Farage. His bubble has burst, four years too early.