I AM not saying that Nigel Farage’s record of starting parties and political movements, which always have him as the leader, is designed solely to give him an opportunity to coin it in, swank around TV studios and present himself as a political titan. But it is surprising how often he has had to come out of retirement in order to save us all.

Here he is again, rebranding the Brexit Party as an anti-lockdown movement called Reform UK and, no doubt, viewing it as his burden to emerge, like King Arthur after centuries of slumber, to lead the country. Or at least that small, but not entirely negligible, minority of English voters that often somehow comprises both thrawn anti-authoritarians and authoritarian reactionaries.

In the past, this section of the electorate sometimes delivered gains at elections where most people didn’t vote, such as those to the European Parliament, but Mr Farage’s success in abolishing those has unfortunately deprived him of that prospect.

If the polls are to be believed, not many voters will flock to his banner, or at least not yet. They may not like the prospect of these new restrictions; they may even think the Government is making a mess of things, but apparently as many as 72 per cent approve of the measures coming in on Thursday, even if they also resent them.

So despite Mr Farage, and a fair amount of discontent from the Tories’ own back benches, England will return to what – with the exception of schools, universities and some branches of manufacturing and construction – amounts to full lockdown again.

Whether Scotland, with its extra tier and the Central Belt already anticipating some of England’s restrictions, or Wales, with its 17-day firebreak due to finish on November 9, follow suit exactly or not is probably academic. There will be some form of close alignment, and travel restrictions will make any distinctions less obvious in any case. Current questions about, for example, the furlough scheme need to be clarified, but there’s no real doubt it will apply to any part of the UK that imposes rules that necessitate it.

But sooner or later, Mr Farage will gain some support and traction, as he did with Brexit, because no one is arguing that these measures, even though they involve shutting down much of the economy and ordinary life, are a solution. Just as they were the first time, they are a stopgap to try to bring down the rate of infection and prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed.

Some people will ask why, if they worked in creating the time to build capacity, they are necessary again. Others will wonder why, if they didn’t work the first time, they’re expected to this time. One thing everyone is entitled to ask, and that deserves a proper answer, is what criteria will allow for restrictions being lifted.

The most likely answer – an R-rate that means infections are actually falling – doesn’t seem likely by December.

Not even those who are gung-ho about lockdowns are making the case that they work in any sense other than avoiding what they claim will be imminent disaster. We can’t magic up huge extra numbers of NHS staff, even if we can provide additional

beds and equipment. There isn’t yet a vaccine, and even if one comes soon, it will take a long time to administer it across the population. For now, the only things that are being presented as helpful are effective testing and tracking, shielding and – for everyone – substantial changes to behaviour.

Neither the UK nor the Scottish government has been notably brilliant at providing quick, widespread testing or effective tracking, especially when compared with a country like Slovakia, which seems able to test half its entire population on a single day, as it did at the weekend. It’s hard, too, to see why there’s been no real attempt to introduce some obvious measures, such as testing at airports (something the Italians were doing in February), or studying and emulating the countries (largely in the far East) that have had the most success in containment. But neither government deserves total condemnation, either.

Despite criticism – whether it comes from those, such as Mr Farage, who claim that the whole thing has been a disastrous overreaction, or from those who think the measures should have been stricter yet – neither the restrictions imposed nor the results have been wildly out of line with many other European nations. The UK has a higher per capita death rate than Germany or Switzerland, but a fairly similar one to Italy and France, and a better rate than Belgium or Spain. It’s not a stellar record, but nor is it uniquely atrocious in outcome, singularly oppressive or distinctively lax.

But we clearly need to do better, and if that – until the advent of a vaccine – can be done only with significant constraints on freedom, huge costs to businesses and individuals’ jobs, and enormous personal, emotional costs, including those to family relations and health, it is inevitable that people’s patience will fray.

It won’t just be fringe cranks, who think that the virus is not much worse than the cold, or is a conspiracy to sell us Chinese 5G technology, or a ploy by Big Pharma to vaccinate us all with mind-control poisons. Nor the terminally feckless, selfish or irresponsible, who think it’s not worth wearing a mask, keeping apart in shops, or calling a halt to mass raves. It will be a lot of ordinary people who think that letting Uncle George, who hasn’t been out his front door since March anyway, come to Christmas dinner probably won’t make much difference.

This is the trouble for any attempt to comply with the advice from the scientists guiding the governments. Even if you dismiss dissenting scientists, such as the signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration, out of hand, the public health advisors informing policy are not offering a long-term solution, but management. Even if that is all we can hope for, and even if the politicians have no realistic option but to follow their prescriptions, sooner or later there will be widespread malcontent. The question is how widespread, how soon, and what response it creates.

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Read more: Brexit Party: Nigel Farage to relaunch party as Reform UK