Nigel Farage, Reform UK and post-Brexit Britain: Reshaping British Politics and ‘Fixing’ a Country ‘Damaged’ by Immigration

Fathi Bourmeche

(University of Sfax)

                     Abstract

This paper argues that Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK would reshape British politics, claiming to ‘fix’ post-Brexit Britain ‘damaged’ by immigration. Farage pledged to gain back control of a broken country by relieving Britons of the legacy of the two major parties, namely Labour and the Conservatives, blaming them for ‘damaging’ Britain by allowing a huge number of immigrants, particularly in the aftermath of Brexit. Farage claimed that his party would replace the Conservatives, thus reshaping the political landscape. The corpus of the study consists of two speeches delivered at different periods of time. The first one is Farage’s maiden speech, delivered in the UK Parliament on 23 July 2024. The second speech was delivered on 28 March 2025 in Birmingham at a rally for their local election due on 2 May 2025. The speeches are analysed using Fairclough’s and Fairclough’s (2012) practical reasoning framework adopted in Political Discourse Analysis and juxtaposed to YouGov polls dealing with the same issues. Findings suggest that Farage has emerged as an influential politician who would reshape Britain’s political landscape for years to come, validating the main argument of the study.