A torn, sodden ensign flapped by Dover harbour and the shipping forecast spoke of winds rising to six on the Beaufort scale.

That was before Nigel Farage sashayed into the Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club – he has an unexpectedly camp gait – and another mini-cyclone ensued.

Recent immigration, declared Reform Party hon president Farage, had been ‘a slow-motion D-Day in reverse’.

Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer were boring ‘middle-managers’, as useless as each other.

This had been ‘the dullest start to a general election’ in memory and the Conservatives were doomed, so Tory supporters should have no qualms about donning turquoise Reform T-shirts (XXL size available)

The Prophet Nigel himself was not seeking election. Rishi had pulled a dirty trick by calling it early, and standing as a candidate just now did not fit with Mr Farage’s ‘six-year plan’ for reviving the British Right.

There may also be the small matter, this autumn, of Donald Trump’s election campaign, which Mr Farage hopes to assist.

Already he has the powder-blue suit and caramel glow of an American politician.

He has shed weight, slowed his delivery and lost maybe a fraction of his beery japeishness.

There was a sense, here, of a Broadway star accepting a role in the Margate Winter Gardens panto. Simply by attending, he was doing us a favour.

Few communicate as briskly as Farage.

Sir Keir Snorer had ‘no energy, no optimism and no substantial policy’.

Rishi Sunak looked ‘like a frightened rabbit’ (it is certainly true that he has impressive, carrot-crunching gnashers).

Neither of them had a policy to stop the small boats, continued Farage, but Reform was ‘ready to save Britain’.

It would be doing so, he admitted, on a tight budget, for the party has nothing like the £30million he estimated both Labour and the Tories would spend.

Beforehand, while the audience waited in silence, Mr Farage’s waistcoated PR wallah apologised for the lack of stage glitz and invited us to ‘imagine rousing music’.

The catering consisted of a bowl of custard creams and a lone kettle which a Fleet Street photographer filled from the gents.

The yacht club, which once greeted Victorian Channel swimmer Capt Webb back to Dover – ‘hang your porpoise fat at the door, sir’ – was a sorrier proposition.

Its door canopy was mottled by mould and a crack ran across the room’s ceiling. Beyond the first-floor windows, rain fell, a P&O ferry waited to dock and low cloud swirled around medieval Dover Castle.

On a fine day we might have had a view of France and, indeed, of those ‘D-Day’ inflatables bringing yet more immigrants to our shores. ‘Aggressive young males… this is now a matter of national security,’ said Mr Farage.

Newsreader Geeta Guru-Murthy heard that back at BBC headquarters and accused Mr Farage of using ‘customary inflammatory language’.

Actually, he was quoting Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk, a former Brussels magnifico who tried to scupper Brexit and is therefore a Beeboids’ pin-up. Ms Guru-Murthy had to do a swift reverse-ferret.

A Sun reporter asked Mr Farage if he was a ‘chicken’ for not standing for election. ‘You can call me what you like but ‘realist’ might be more accurate,’ jawed Mr Farage.

A Guardian reporter suggested he was anti-Semitic and Islamophobic. ‘What, everyone hates me?’ he guffawed, the left of his mouth stretching wide with cartoon disbelief. ‘I’m like Millwall Football Club!’

To a slightly la-di-dah sister of the fourth estate he pointed out that one of the ‘British values’ he was defending was gender equality.

Angela Rayner met her local mosque elders the other day to beg them to vote Labour, and she was seemingly the only woman in the room. Vote Reform for feminism! Ditto gay rights. The mosque chaps weren’t too hot on those, either.

Last, would he debate Sir Keir? ‘I could just about stay awake that long. I’m sure I could.’

Then it was out on to the gale-swept balcony for a fag.

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