Farage did not opt for a conventional route. When his heroine Mrs Thatcher — liberator of the City and the Falklands — was removed in 1990 he was shocked. Then her successor John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty which extended the reach of the European Union. Farage felt so betrayed by the Conservatives that he left them to become one of the founders of the United Kingdom Independence Party in 1993. He is now its leader for the second time.

Breakaways tend not to work in Britain's party system. But Farage has had considerable success. Under his leadership, UKIP has prospered, winning the recent European elections and leading a populist insurgency in the Tory shires and beyond. The Eurosceptic, withdrawalist, anti-immigration party is now poised to do the Conservatives serious harm in next year's general election. Even if it wins not a single constituency, it need only score as little as 6 per cent, or roughly two million votes, to cost the Tories power.

It is highly appropriate that the post-Thatcher Tory party should face such a challenge from an arch-Thatcherite. For no figure better illustrates the paradox at the heart of Thatcherism and the contradictions inherent in globalisation than the former trader, and enthusiastic advocate of the City, Nigel Farage.

Thatcher was not just a pioneer of modern globalisation in the City. She pushed down trade barriers, encouraged open competition by ushering in the EU's single market and evangelised in her speeches for free trade outside Europe. 

Yet she was ahead of her time in another respect. Towards the end of her premiership she became concerned about the rise of supra-national bodies such as the EU-empowered ostensibly to facilitate cross-border trade-seeking to replace the nation state. One of the greatest advocates of economic disruption and spreading free trade, Thatcher became uncomfortable with some of the consequences of globalisation. Having signed up to the Single European Act, as a liberal free trader, she came to realise (too late) that it entailed a serious loss of national sovereignty. 

Farage is a Thatcherite. He is for one half of globalisation, free trade, while being very troubled by the consequences in terms of migration and loss of national sovereignty.

I raised this recently at a private lunch, where the host was someone who had been a significant figure in the Thatcher revolution. The conversation among the various business leaders turned to globalisation and the question of the UK's membership of the EU. The "what would Thatcher do?" question is almost as hackneyed as "what would Reagan do?". Circumstances are different and both of those leaders — still justifiably much admired — made many more compromises in power than their most slavish followers tend to admit now. Still, I wondered aloud, what would Thatcher have made of the impact of globalisation?

She would not have pussy-footed around apologising for it, said one of those present. Thatcher would have pointed out that it had done more to lift hundreds of millions of the world's citizens out of poverty than any amount of government interference in the workings of the free market. That it has done this in China, the Brics and beyond is undeniably true.