Does Nigel Farage know what people really think of him? I do – and he won’t like it | Aditya Chakrabortty

An anti-Farage army of voters is there to be galvanised, as exclusive data shows. But getting them out will be tricky Who can stop Nigel Farage? Which voters would actually dig out their ID and schlep down to the polling booth to fight him? Over the past year, these two questions have come to shape British politics. From Runcorn and Helsby to Caerphilly and Aberdeen South, via countless flimsy leaflets claiming “Only X can win here”, parties have jostled for the part of his majesty’s opposition to Reform. Those battles have given us Hannah Spencer and Andy Burnham; they have bulldozed Labour in Wales and forced Keir Starmer out of No 10. Those questions hang over Britain even now, in what is easily Farage’s summer horribilis. He faces a shiny new prime minister and fronts a team that keeps scrapping with itself, while ahead looms a parliamentary investigation into whether he should have declared a £5m gift from a generous crypto billionaire from the other side of the world. Look at these turquoise clowns, chortle the Westminster commentators. Check out that Burnham bounce, marvel analysts. And despite it all, Farage’s side are almost neck and neck in the polls with Burnh