Nigel Farage is channelling Lord Kitchener. The Field Marshal’s hat has been replaced by the Brexiteer’s trademark flat cap and there is no elaborate moustache but the message is as pointed as Farage’s index finger: “Britain needs the Brexit Party, and the Brexit Party needs you!”

Standing on a ledge overlooking the white cliffs of Dover, the campaign video echoes the mood inside the Featherstone Working Men’s Club near Pontefract, where Britain’s beleaguered political system appears well and truly on the brink.

Former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe has just been given a standing ovation and now the largely Left-leaning residents of this former mining town are chanting the name of the nation’s most prominent Right-winger since Margaret Thatcher.

“Ni-gel! Nig-el! Nig-el!” they roar as the pinstriped former Ukip leader bounces on to the stage, part politician, part ringmaster, to declare: “The two party system doesn’t work any more!”

As the country votes in the European Parliamentary elections that 17.4 million never wanted, the Brexit Party is on course to win 30 per cent of the vote, pushing the Conservatives into third or even fourth place behind Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

The party was only launched a month ago but since April 12, it has attracted nearly 100,000 supporters, each pledging £25 towards the coffers, which have been boosted by £200,000 from former Tory backer Jeremy Hosking with Farage teasing that he is “actively in conversation” with more big hitters.