A more fundamental weakness lies in the very essence of Reform as a rightwing populist party.
What if what you call right wing is in fact popular? Or, as it seems to be turning out, the working class that actyually works isn’t all that taken with the concerns of the metropolitan left?
“This style of politics surfs on a multitude of resentments, promising people that their sense of pride and belonging can be restored by redrawing the borders of national identity more narrowly and punishing those who stand in its way.”
Isn’t ‘resentment’ equally a characteristic of the left, with its politics of ency?
They’re keen on redrawing borders and punishing those who stand in their way too.
The image Labour (and their supporters) have of themselves as technocrats is risible. The Renters Rights Act is obvious populism. Labour have always been a populist party, with the Webb / Laski types providing a bit of cover.
As an experiment I typed ency into the text box and it didn’t get red wavy underlined, so you’re forgiven.
The politics of ency
The politics of feeling bad
The politics of looting
Well it’s message understood
The local elections were a Re-Flex to all of that.
And a serious bunch of lefties they were, too. Good rhythm section, though.
It’s worth voting Reform just to rub their smug faces in it:
IoW he’s a typical anti-white, anti-Western, Guardian type.
The British Establishment? I can’t think of anyone less “establishment” than the local people I met when helping out UKIP. The local candidate was a publican. The volunteers were regular people, small business owners.
The Conservatives and Labour are full of people in the guilds like solicitors, public sector employees.
The establishment only made UKIP and Reform happen by treating the working people like idiot scum. Shockingly, they aren’t running back to them because they got a slightly more right-wing leader.
I won’t say they ever asked us. They asked us many times. But without our acceptance and approval they did it anyway. And now it’s our fault for noticing.
That should be a very odd title for a piece in a newspaper that touts itself as being independent and hence by implication unbiased. Hmmmmmm ……
We do it = democracy
They do it = populism
As Nigel is showing, it’s always far better to be populist than to be unpopulist.
‘This loosely connected movement has declared its hostility to the checks and balances that prevent democracy from becoming a tyranny of the majority, or even of those with only a plurality of support’
So politics should be a tyranny of the minority with somebody mentally ill (Big Trans) able to effect institutional capture to the level that reality itself can be redefined?? What ‘checks and balances’ have worked against Big Trans or indeed arguably the entirety of the LGBTQ Alphabet Soup movement’s expansion to indoctrination of children?
A more fundamental weakness lies in the very essence of Reform as a rightwing populist party. This style of politics surfs on a multitude of resentments, promising people that their sense of pride and belonging can be restored by redrawing the borders of national identity more narrowly and punishing those who stand in its way. Reform’s sinister promise to place immigration detention centres in areas that vote Green is a case in point. This is what gives Reform its edge, but it is a mixed blessing. Ostentatious cruelty won’t actually improve the lives of its supporters, so a party that does business this way must either race to outdo itself with even more extreme pronouncements, or back down and lose credibility.
I have been advocating a version of this policy for years – indeed I think that the state should move the entirety of the Net Zero budget to begin purchasing houses that are up for sale in areas like Crouch End, Bloomsbury, Highgate and so on with a view to giving them over to the Home Office to detain known criminals in – people calling for open borders almost never have the ‘courage’ of their convictions – it’s called accountability. I know there’s probably left wing judicial precedent that might make this challenging to implement but it should certainly be explored as an option.
That is a huge potential weak spot, particularly as Reform is now under more scrutiny than ever. It’s especially true in English local government, where Reform has actual decision-making power, a system that has been so starved of resources it is a poisoned chalice for any party. It’s even more difficult for one whose representatives are largely untested and in some cases unfit for office, and which has spent several years claiming there is a magic money tree to be found by cutting “wasteful” spending on diversity initiatives. (Spoiler: there isn’t, as suggested by the difficulties faced by existing Reform councils.)
There IS a magic money tree to be found by eliminating diversity initiatives but in order to find out it isn’t the councils themselves that can do it. Much of this crap is mandated from the centre – so in order to remove it you need to repeal the Equality Act, repeal the HRA, abolish the EHRC, remove ‘Hate crime’ from the statue book. And you will face opposition reminiscent of tales of the Waffen SS in Bohemia Moravia after Nazi defeat was imminent or the Oradour sur Glane massacre but that is what is at stake. As President Trump has proved, people like ‘Winners’ and I’d hazard this kind of crap has a very low level of actual support. Once people feel free to speak their mind about it, its partisans will inevitably find themselves on the back foot and will actually have to acknowledge their hateful bigotry.
If so, then the challenge will have to come from elsewhere. The latest polls suggest a large potential bloc of left-leaning and socially liberal parties, ranging across Labour, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru. It is fragmented, but could at the very least be mobilised as a “stop Reform” coalition as a short-term electoral tactic. In places where no one party has a majority – which includes many English councils as well as the Scottish and Welsh parliaments – politicians will need to show they can work together productively.
I’d actually in a sense Welcome this – we have seen in Scotland it has proven utterly calamitous as the coalition (and that’s just with two Stalinist parties in it) proves unwieldy and gaffe prone. The damage they could do – their support for massively unpopular initiatives and militant Islam could leave the Left in the wilderness for years
All in all – congrats – an article on a par with Murphy in terms of ‘wish fulfilment’
the state should move the entirety of the Net Zero budget to begin purchasing houses that are up for sale in areas like Crouch End, Bloomsbury, Highgate and so on with a view to giving them over to the Home Office to detain known criminals in… I know there’s probably left wing judicial precedent that might make this challenging to implement but it should certainly be explored as an option.
This was actually LCC policy. Buying up property & land in the wealther parts of London & building council housing.
BiS – I recall it well from history and various articles in the Mail and Express in the 80s (albeit took place before my time) – my point being that I think it would be an extremely popular policy. When Greg Abbott and Doug Ducey ferried illegals up to Democrat cities, it drew hysterical condemnation from the usual suspects, and would my proposal but most ordinary people would I think be gratified.
Nitpick: Ron Desantis of Florida, not Gov. Ducey of Arizona, who was out of office by that time.
It’s not punishment, it’s taking them at their word. They march around and scream “asylum seekers welcome here”, should we take it that they’re actually lying?
Minister: Where shall we house these people?
Secretary: Well, people in these areas very publiclly state they would welcome them.
There’s plenty of council housing (sorry, “social” housing) in Crouch End, and there are a couple of HMOs filled with the dusky right over the road from me, although the nearest “migrant” hotel is up the hill in Muswell Hill.
That said I’d be perfectly happy for Nige to ring Hampstead Heath with razor wire and fill it with Nissen huts for these cunts. He could hire pikeys to do the job; they seem very quick and efficient at this sort of thing.
“Reform’s sinister promise to place immigration detention centres in areas that vote Green is a case in point. This is what gives Reform its edge, but it is a mixed blessing. Ostentatious cruelty won’t actually improve the lives of its supporters, so a party that does business this way must either race to outdo itself with even more extreme pronouncements, or back down and lose credibility.”
I wonder what is cruel about having immigrants living close to people that want immigrants? Or maybe it’s cruel to the immigrants to have to live close to the Greens?
One look at Daniel Trilling tells you all you need to know about him.
You shouldn’t judge books by covers, but….
You do start to wonder when it comes to the Graun if they actually select on that smug Intellectual™ look for the males, and the Constipated Karen look for the females.
I was quite heartened by Rupert Lowe’s party’s performance in Great Yarmouth.
Ten seats, ten wins.
One in the eye for those who said it was mad.
Unlike Farage, he doesn’t appear to think that our response to the Islamisation of Britain should be to roll over and hope they kill us last, so there’s that.
I read some Labour person complaining about all their losses “despite all the work we do for who we represent”. I corrected them: you’ve spelled “because” wrong. It’s *because* of all the work you do for the lanyard class that the actual working class who actually vote have kicked you out.
Would do the Labour Party a lot of good if it *was* filled by the people they claim to represent. Rather than do-gooders who simply want to “do work” for them, and then claim to speak on their behalf.
As the core of the nation seem to like Reform policies, then they must by definition be Centrist policies… Grundy needs to adjust it’s Overton Window to put Reform in the Middle of it.
That’s a non sequitur, although it’s a non sequitur people from other political groups have inflicted on us too. Most self-proclaimed “centrists” aren’t really, they just want to use the term to sound cuddlier and less scary.
If asked to rank the political parties on a spectrum, voters would generally place Reform on the right flank and the Greens on the left. That doesn’t make Reform wrong and is not anything to be ashamed of.
As some individuals are further right on some measures and further left on others the “centre” is a blob containing moderate Tories and moderate LibDems.