THE shadow of Nigel Farage hangs heavy over the Tory conference in Birmingham. Uniting the right is the theme of endless formal and informal debates.

That is scarcely surprising. The Tories’ huge defeat in July owed little to Conservative voters shifting to Labour, and far more to ex-Tory voters turning to Farage’s Reform UK party, or simply sitting the election out in disgust at their failures in office.

This a phenomenon reproduced elsewhere as mass centre-right parties find themselves hamstrung between their commitment to capitalist globalisation and a surging national populism.