Is anyone else losing count of the number of parties we now have to the right of centre of UK politics? Incidentally, I don’t count the Conservative Party among them; they swung to the left a long time ago and never came back.
UKIP – remember them? – still exist, and their Farage-led spinoff Brexit Party morphed into Reform. David Kurten leads the Heritage Party and then Ben Habib formed the short-lived Advance UK which threw its chips in recently with Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain party*. Not forgetting of course, Laurence Fox’s Reclaim.
It’s all getting a bit Monty Python as in that glorious piece of cinematic comedy, Life of Brian and mimicking what used to take place on the left of politics. The People’s Front of Judea versus the Judean People’s Front, indeed, except that we must contend with the New Judean People’s Front and the Judean Liberation Party, or equivalents, as well.
We must be getting near the end of this mad splintering among politicians who claim to stand for British values, a reduction in immigration, toughness on crime, an end to wokery, and a plague on all things socialist. Apart from anything else, we’re going to run out of names for any new parties.
David Kurten defied convention when he named his outfit the Heritage Party and, at least Ben Habib tried a positive slant: ‘Advance’. The rest seem to be stuck on the ‘Re’ prefix: ‘Reclaim’; ‘Restore’; and ‘Reform’. What possible ‘Re’ prefixed names could there be left? ‘Remind’, ‘Rewind’ and ‘Retake’, perhaps?
But, joking aside, this is all getting quite serious. The splintering of former alliances and even friendships leads to a fragmented front. Without some electoral pacts – and that seems incredibly unlikely given the personalities involved and the obvious vitriol between, for example, Farage on the one hand with Habib and Lowe on the other, and the hostile front established by Kemi Badenoch towards all things Reform – then the way is open for a large, united party, even one making a total mess of things.
I am, of course, referring to the Labour Party. The way things are going we are in grave danger of facing another Labour electoral victory at the next election. The Tories are a joke, haemorrhaging MPs to Reform from a very diminished base after the last election. If you are pro-UK values, anti-immigration and fed up to the back teeth of wokery, inclusivity, diversity and women with cocks, then who do you vote for?
In the mix, slightly to the left economically but dry as toast on all the above litmus tests is the SDP. But they only have two MPs, and their leader William Clouston is not one of them. But, as much as I like them and, especially, one of their prominent members Rod Liddle, even the SDP does not think it can win an election.
There was a point at which I really thought that Reform was going to save us. I have never voted for them, although I did vote for its forerunner the Brexit Party. If I thought we could put the Labour Party back on the shelf and give the Tories a further lesson in how they should not have led the country to ruin and oppression during the Covid years, then I’d go for them. But only if I thought they could win.
Now I believe Reform has lost its way, a lot. Farage is less leader than he is ego. Good leaders tolerate a modicum of dissent, and the best leaders surround themselves with people who want and who could just as easily do their job. Farage lacks the humility and, perhaps, the confidence to do that.
Thus, Reform is becoming a refuge for disloyal Tories, complete idiots and Covid vaccine pushers like Nadhim Zahawy. Suella Braverman talked a good talk before, during and after her time at the Home Office, but she achieved the square root of bugger all in terms of stopping immigration and kicking out illegals. Reform is rapidly looking like an alternative Tory Party, except that it is stocked by former Tories the Tory Party was well rid of.
One exception may be Danny Kruger, but who has heard anything from him recently? He is a potential tall poppy in Reform, but we all know what happens to tall poppies under Farage; they go the way of Habib and Lowe.
*this was the situation at the time of writing but the merger did not take place
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He 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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“…you would do, too…if it happened to you…”
Sandy Shaw?
Lesley Gore (!)
It’s always been the case, in my experience anyway, that there are a few parties outside the LibLabCon mainstream BUT that these are mainly oddball or protest groups and only the candidates’ relatives and friends vote for them, as the rest say ‘meh!’ and anyway probably didn’t get any leaflets to know what was on offer. OK Green and Reform have apparently slipped through to join the ranks of the LibLabCon uniparty, but neither deserve victory on account of Green’s being ‘watermelons’ (but their voters don’t appreciate this, or probably care) and Reform being too arrogant to even work with its supposed ‘far-right’ allies – if it cant do this it definitely can’t tackle the blob.
The Spoilt Paper/Non-Voter Party are this hot favourites to win.
This is a very articulate and shrewd analysis of the present party political situation and one that I also share. The centre right remains perilously split, as it has still not learned the bitter lessons of past internecine wrangling and unrestrained individualism. Personal disagreements absolutely must be put aside in the name of unity if the woke globalist totalitarian left is to be defeated. Reform – sadly a remote and unaccountable party for many supporters and potential members – really must seriously reform itself and Farage himself soon if it is to succeed electorally.
In re: “the short-lived Advance UK which threw its chips in recently with Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain party”: really? Not if the still-active AUK website is to be believed (or is that already out of date?).
No, Advance wanted a coming together but Restore didn’t. Lowe has been heavily influenced by a load of slick, fast-talking young men who see only one solution – theirs – and they don’t want to listen to alternatives which involve some form of compromise. Yes, their solution is an ideal, but politics is the art of the possible.
Ben Habib’s Advance has not joined Rupert Lowe’s Restore that was a statement of intent the council that runs Advance did not agree things are still as they were before.
It probably matters not that the right are fragmented as the right will almost certainly face a united front of the left that will deny them power.
‘…the hostile front established by Kemi Badenoch towards all things Reform.’ Heartily disagree. Farage is the one who never stops bleating about how he is going to DESTROY the Conservative Party. What is KB supposed to do? Say nothing and get criticised for that?
I was wavering on the verge of ‘going Reform’, but it was St Nige’s absolutely uncalled for utter nastiness when getting rid of Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe – both good intelligent men -that put me off him. For all his ability to ‘talk the talk’ and his ‘man of the people’ act, I just don’t trust him and feel if something came up which suited him better, he would be off. Being a one man band must be exhausting, and it’s beginning to show.
Shoot me down in flames. but Kemi Badenoch is the only one of the party leaders I feel I can look up to. She is decent and very smart, and I feel it is a great pity that people are fixated on blaming her for things that happened when she was in no position to do anything about them, and have such tunnel vision that they neither listen to her nor give her a chance. Don’t bother abusing me, I won’t be looking for any replies.
You are right on Farage. He lost me when Habib and Lowe were kicked out in the nastiest way imaginable. But the Conservative Party is so full of wimps, Liberals, Socialists, plus the anything-as-long-as-I’m-alright-Jack sort – without a principle between them so will never get my vote. An entire generation of them need to die/disappear before their guilt of 14 years misgovernment is expunged.
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