Attacking Farage is unlikely to work

In America, the left threw everything it had at Donald Trump in its effort to stop his re-election last year. It knew and feared what he would do to the Blob, and how he would upset the received wisdom that had governed their country so badly under the mentally incapable Joe Biden. An incapacity of age, not of madness, that was deviously hidden from the voters by his closest aides in contempt of democracy.

Although it did not work and Trump won resoundingly, the British left now seems to be similarly fearful of Nigel Farage and are going after him in the same way. This will probably get worse, but from his point of view it is a sign of his strength and success, in hitting the Blob's raw nerves.

The first sign that the left is desperate is its decision to extend voting to 16-year-olds. This is not a well thought through examination of when adulthood starts, as it was when voting was reduced to 18 by an earlier Labour government led by Sir Harold Wilson. No thought has been given to the other indicators of maturity.

Indeed, the controversial Online Safety Act seeks to protect those aged between 16 to 18 from themselves at the same time as it is proposed to lower the voting age. The intention to give votes to 16-year-olds is purely tactical; Labour believes that they will vote for it rather than for Reform.

I doubt this effort in gerrymandering will work. Turnout among younger voters is low anyway, and may well be less still between 16 and 18. In any case, those who are interested seem to be either on the far left or the Reform right. There is some evidence of a divergence between sexes, with young men more likely to be right wing, and young women left wing.

This would comparatively help Nigel as he is doing better than the Conservatives with young male voters, and the women are heading off to the Greens and possibly to the new, as yet unnamed, Corbyn party. Nonetheless, the aim of rushing through juvenile votes is clearly one that has come about because of fear of Farage. They think that if he cannot be stopped on the current system, then it must be altered.