Everyone is bending the knee to populist Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage has always been seen as a sort of joke by all the political parties in the UK, and also by newspaper cartoonists. He is generally seen as someone with that ridiculous froglike smile, holding a pint of beer and wearing some dreadful tweedy-style jacket or suit. Yes, a joke. Well now, after snatching the majority of the votes in the European election, Farage has suddenly become a force to be reckoned with and all the candidates to succeed Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister, are being urged to take him seriously for the first time. In my personal view, a successful populist he may be but he espouses the kind of Britain which I would not want to live in, and the Tory leadership candidates should stop thinking of him as a rival. Remember, he doesn't have a single MP in the House of Commons. He used to be leader of UKIP, a now totally disparaged political movement. He's a friend of Donald Trump! Yet Farage appears to have got under everyone's skin. The Tory leadership candidates are afraid of him. So what do they do? They come out with Farage-like statements to try and show that they are as populist as him. A whole bunch of them have now stated that the UK MUST leave the EU by October 31, even if there is no deal. A no-deal Brexit is now on all their lips as if it's a brilliant solution. It's the Farage solution. And they are copying him because they are scared that if there is a general election, Farage will find candidates to stand in every constituency and before you know where you are, Prime Minister Nigel Farage will be walking through the door at Number 10. OK, I know this is too far-fetched but this is what is in the back of everyone's mind. And if not Farage, then Jeremy Corbyn. Either way, disaster for this country. What we need more than anything from the Conservative Party is a politician with guts and commitment and style and charisma who will ignore the likes of Farage and Corbyn and just set out a positive and politically deliverable way forward on the EU. I would love just one candidate to have the courage to say the UK must after all stay in the EU. But no one will dare say that. Not from the Conservative Party anyway. Two people in the Labour Party HAVE said that and have urged Corbyn to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU. They are Emily Thornberry, shadow foreign secretary, and Tom Watson, deputy leader of the Labour Party. Good for them. But then if you support Labour because of the courageous views of Thornberry and Watson, you still get Corbyn in Number 10. It's a hopeless dilemma.