Reform Derangement Syndrome 

It’s Brexit all over again. Democracy does what democracy has a habit of doing: putting those who have received the most votes into seats and into power. But the quivering masses of the hyper-offended – the Liberals, Greens and assorted lefties – simply cannot accept that.

Although I never watch them, I hear that the mainstream television news channels shoved the results of the local elections down the running order. And again, although I never read them, certain newspapers buried the story inside the copy and not on the front page. The problem is, of course, that Reform took two of the new unitary mayoral authorities – one in Lincolnshire and another here in Hull and East Yorkshire. Reform also had some stunning results elsewhere.

I caught a short piece on the radio by some political figure who, I think, was a Tory bemoaning the fact that some of the sitting candidates who had lost seats to Reform candidates had served their constituencies loyally, and had worked hard on their behalf for decades. Well, ‘boo-hoo!’ Clearly that was not the perception of their electorates; otherwise, they would still be sitting in their seats.

To hear some people, you would think that Hitler had been resurrected and sent his stormtroopers out across the UK. Naturally, our own Reform mayor ex-boxer Luke Campbell has had to defend himself against charges of racism, which is the label automatically applied to anyone who does not agree with everything you say if you are one of the hyper-offended to whom I referred above.

Poor Luke probably did not see that one coming. I witnessed the announcement by Nigel Farage here in Hull that Campbell was to be the Reform mayoral candidate. The audience was as surprised as it seemed underwhelmed, frankly – Luke looked like a sporting rabbit caught in the political headlights.

I didn’t vote for him simply because I underestimated his support and my main aim in voting at all was to keep Labour out. Thankfully, we achieved that; one way or another. Of course, I wish Luke Campbell well. However, given the strength of feeling amongst those who did not vote Reform, which likely reflects the herd of cats he will have to lead in Hull and East Riding, I think he has an uphill struggle to say the least.

In any case, the charge of racism against Luke Campbell is ludicrous; he walloped black boxers across the face with the same aplomb he walloped many white boxers. There was absolutely no discrimination involved.

I avoid social media such as Facebook and Instagram, but my wife keeps me up to date with what is happening in La La Land. One Facebook warrior within my wife’s purview asked whether any of her followers had voted Reform, could they please unfriend her. Perhaps it is just the circles she moves in, but Reform derangement syndrome is highly visible. People on the leftish side of politics, one of whom is a local Labour activist and failed local election candidate, had to spend time ‘recovering’ in her garden and ‘contemplating’ what kind of country we have become since the local elections.

It never occurs to people like her who have a garden to recover in that it is not what we have become since the local elections, but what we had already become months, even years, before for many of the population who don’t have a garden to recover in. Hull, like many UK cities, is changing beyond belief due to mass immigration both legal and, undoubtedly, illegal. Whole streets are, essentially, Muslim enclaves.

One relief from all that is the non-Muslim immigrants from Romania, whose women folk seem to think nothing of wandering the streets all day in their dressing gowns and slippers. I serve on a school board (probably not for long if this article falls into the wrong hands) and these families are a massive headache for the teachers. They appear to put little value on education, the children – when they are there, which is rarely – are disruptive and a disproportionate amount of time is spent on them at the expense of home-grown children, the sons and daughters of UK taxpayers, the ones who are funding the UK education system.

The teachers must act partly as social workers by going to their homes to check up on them and partly as police – as they clocked out years ago – by trying to track the children if they disappear. This happens when the families decide that they have bled our welfare state enough and return to Romania.

I doubt we’ll see much change any time soon as a result of Reform winning these mayoralties, or across the rest of the country where they now control many councils. Things have probably gone too far. It remains to be seen if these results can be replicated by Farage in the next general election. Most likely not as local elections midterm of any government are often used as a protest vote against the sitting government. But, to some extent, the people have spoken and we may be seeing the beginning of real change and that is something worth contemplating, whether or not you have a garden.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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(Photograph: Owain.davies, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

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