By bringing back Nigel Farage, Ukip condemns itself to life as a one-man band / The Telegraph

By bringing back Nigel Farage, Ukip condemns itself to life as a one-man band

The man who promised it would not be 'credible' for him to keep on leading the party will now continue to be a millstone around its neck

Farage’s non-resignation is the start of the last act of the Ukip farce.

By Rupert Myers6:24PM BST 11 May 2015 / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11598250/By-bringing-back-Nigel-Farage-Ukip-condemns-itself-to-life-as-a-one-man-band.html

Not since Francesco Schettino insisted that his fateful captaincy of the sinking Costa Concordia ended when he "tripped" into a lifeboat has there been a more embarrassing, self-serving incident than Ukip’s "rejection’ of Nigel Farage’s resignation. A party long criticized for being a shambolic circus of demagoguery now has a leader whose three-day-long retirement bears the hallmarks of a man trying to follow the career trajectory of Jesus of Nazareth. It looks like little more than a personality cult.

Maybe it was the prospect of being made constantly uncomfortable by people speaking foreign languages within his own household, or maybe the embarrassment of not being able to return to the "lucrative" career he left behind. Either way, Nigel Farage obviously prefers to continue his never-ending tour of the country holding a pint (perhaps being party leader is just a form of grim, photo-op enabler).

The problem is that he is no good. Ukip has claimed that Farage's performance was "impressive", but this is like describing a football team who constantly lose matches as "fun to watch". Politics is about gaining seats, and winning the game by the rules that have been set. Nigel Farage is for many a fantastic populist, who helped thrust his party into the limelight. But this result shows that he is a poor strategist. It now needs a leader with greater political savvy.

Worse, this U-turn has further devalued him as a figurehead. Farage’s shtick was that he wasn’t like other politicians. He had already had to abandon a manifesto he launched and flip-flopped on suggestions that he might do deals with Labour or Cameron's Conservative. Now he has made a betrayal of Cleggian proportions. This is the man who in his own autobiography insisted: "It is frankly just not credible for me to continue to lead the party without a Westminster seat."

Very little about Farage or Ukip remains credible - certainly not the comforting noises he was making to voters and to ambitious colleagues that he would be out the door if he failed in South Thanet. Still, if you’re annoyed or frustrated by his refusal to give up his permanent seat on BBC’s Question Time, you can at least have a chuckle at how Douglas Carswell - still the party's only MP - must be feeling right now.

While other parties learn the lessons of their election failure and replace old, tired leadership with fresh thinking, Ukip has chosen to dig the rut deeper. Today it looks like a zombie party standing for nothing much beyond Nigel Farage’s ego.