NIGEL FARAGE would make a fruitful subject for psychologists interested in the functioning of the subconscious.

As a conscious and sentient being, he inhabits a world where, despite being a millionaire commodity trader by profession; a non-dom with a succession of foreign-born partners; and his object of adoration, Keir Starmer’s new bestie, he sees himself as the personification of Albion with a special affinity to the working class.

It is a big ask. Set aside what accumulated wealth and property he has retained over a working life in the service of the most predatory sectors of the finance industry his present wealth, apart from a £3 million property portfolio of four homes, starts with the £91,346 plus that comes his way as an MP, and he trousers £4,000 a month for sharing his prejudices with the readers of the Daily Telegraph.

According to the parliamentary register of interests, he collected £16,597.22 from Cameo, an online provider of personalised video messages. Public appearances clocked up another £13,000, and working as a presenter for GB News brought in £100,000 a month at an hourly rate of £3,125.

And as he inhabits a world where the standard response of working people to a privately educated commodity trader posing as a friend of the people cannot be plainly reproduced in a family newspaper, he has found in migration an issue to deflect such a response.

If by an accident of birth he had been born female, he would see himself as Boudica repelling the foreign invader.

And this is his distinctive appeal to a constituency that has been cultivated by generations of chauvinist politicians, reactionary media millionaires, far-right fanatics and real-life fascists now reinforced by Starmer’s Powellite language.

Farage affects to see every problem through the prism of migration. In his world, British immigrants living in other people’s countries is a natural right, while foreign expats arriving here is a problem.

For those who see immigration into Britain as exclusively problematic, they can note that in 2014, net migration fell sharply, reflecting the fact that many people who come here as students or on work visas go home.

In an attempt to capture the initiative, somewhat lost to the flag-waving far-right forces bidding to capture his bigotry franchise — and to the rather successful countermobilisations of local anti-racists that have mostly outnumbered flag-wavers — he has ramped up the rhetoric with a fanciful new policy.

Today he said: “We will abolish indefinite leave to remain status, which grants migrants the right to live, work and study in Britain permanently with full access to Britain’s health and benefits system.”

Where the patrician subconscious emerges is in the next line: “This threatens to bankrupt our bloated welfare state.”

Do we provide too many services? And how is our welfare state bloated? Do we need fewer migrant workers in the adult social care sector, looking after our sick and elderly?

Are there too many in our NHS where thousands of migrant workers, medical specialists, nurses and ancillary staff keep our most precious institution ticking over?

Is it in the agricultural sector where migrant workers sustain our food production for poverty wages?

When Farage says he wants a new system where migrant workers will have no rights to benefits or healthcare without insurance, he sees a future health sector run on US lines with predatory insurance companies policing access to healthcare.

Farage’s wet dream would turn our cities into hunting grounds for Trumpian-style immigration squads with a police regime in every hospital, school, care home and farm.