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International artist Daniel Lismore delivers advice on Reform

I’ve sat in rooms where powerful men laugh at you. They know you’re struggling. They know you’re angry. And they know exactly how to use it

Daniel Lismore by Daniel Lismore
11 February 2026
in Democracy, Opinion, Politics
Reading Time: 6 mins read
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Daniel Lismore with Nigel Farage

Daniel Lismore with Nigel Farage. Photograph and blurring of swear word on hand with permission from the author Daniel Lismore

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I am going to say something that will make a lot of people angry, but it needs to be said plainly.

I have met Nigel Farage

I do not know him intimately and I am not claiming insight into his private thoughts, but I know the world he moves in because I sometimes move through it too. The private rooms. The members’ clubs. The donor dinners. The places most people in Britain will never step inside. I know how very wealthy people talk when the doors are closed. I know the jokes they make about ordinary voters. I know how openly they discuss how easy it is to wind people up, distract them, and point their anger in the wrong direction.

They know you are tired.

They know you are struggling.

They know you feel ignored and disposable.

And they know that if they give you someone else to blame, you will not look too closely at who is actually taking your money.

That is why they point at boats while quietly emptying your pockets.

I did not grow up rich. I did not grow up insulated from reality. I know what it is to worry about bills, to count pennies, to feel one shock away from everything falling apart. My life changed later. And because of that, I now see both sides. I sit in rooms with billionaires, politicians, and people who shape policy, and I hear conversations you will never hear.

I am not guessing, just telling you what I have witnessed

They do not talk about protecting your future. They talk about margins, leverage, control, and how to keep people angry enough not to organise. Ordinary people are not respected in those rooms. They are discussed as a problem to manage or a tool to deploy. This is why I cannot stay quiet while watching the same manipulation play out again.

Look honestly at your life before Brexit and your life now. Look at your weekly shop. Look at food prices here compared with Europe. Look at what tariffs and import taxes have done to costs. Look at wages that have not kept up. Look at energy bills. Look at rent and mortgages. Look at the NHS struggling without tens of thousands of staff lost after freedom of movement ended. Look at ambulances that do not arrive on time. Look at nurses, carers, and teachers using food banks.

Ask yourself without pride or anger getting in the way – are you better off?

Nigel Farage helped create the conditions you are living under. He championed Brexit, then stepped away while the consequences landed on you. He helped pull the UK out of the Dublin III agreement, which meant we lost our returns agreement with Europe for migrants. That decision directly contributed to the situation he now uses to frighten you. He helped build the chaos, then points at it and tells you to panic.

People who worked in immigration policy warned this would happen years ago. It was predictable. It was discussed. It was ignored because chaos is useful when you want power without responsibility.

Now look at what is being proposed next. A return to austerity. Lower pay for young workers. Weaker protections for employees. A move away from a universal NHS towards insurance-style systems where access depends on what you can afford. A shrinking safety net. Less accountability. More power concentrated at the top.

This is not about restoring Britain. It is about restoring hierarchy

The trick is simple

Keep people fighting each other so they never look up. Blame migrants. Blame protesters. Blame anyone except the people who designed the system you are trapped in. That way, when rights are stripped back and costs are pushed onto households, the anger goes sideways instead of upwards.

If you vote for this, it will not damage my life. I will be fine. I sit at tables with people who always land on their feet. Reform will not touch them. It will not touch me. It will touch you – your children, your parents and your neighbours – the people already closest to the edge.

I am saying this because I care. If I did not, I would stay silent, enjoy my access, and watch the damage from a safe distance. Silence would be easier. Telling the truth costs more.

You think people like me are your enemy because we make you uncomfortable. We are not. Your enemy is the man who flatters you, feeds your anger, and tells you that suffering is someone else’s fault while he moves on untouched.

We want our country back too

But not back to a fantasy sold by flag shaggers who never spoke for all of us, even though they claim they do. We want it back from the people who broke it, sold it, and now want applause for finishing the job.

Reform will not save you.

Reform will not protect you.

Reform will not stand with you when the bill arrives.

Think carefully.

Because once this is done, there is no one left to blame but the people who told you exactly what would happen.


You can find further information about Daniel’s art at Daniel Lismore

Comments? We want to hear them. Please write to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk


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Daniel Lismore

Daniel Lismore

Daniel Lismore is a London-based artist, twice featuring in the top 100 of the Guardian’s Pride Power List. In 2016, as Circuit Ambassador for the Tate Museums, he hosted various exhibitions at the Tate Modern & Tate Britain. His first book, ‘Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Already Taken’ (pub. Rizzoli, 2016) was followed by international exhibitions in Basel, Venice, Iceland & Poland. Daniel is an active ambassador for clothes recycling organisations, the LGBTQ+ community & climate activism. He’s produced designs Naomi Campbell’s Fashion for Relief show at the British Museum, the V&A, and Harrison Birtwistle's iconic opera The Mask of Orpheus, at the London Coliseum. https://www.daniellismore.com/

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