WHAT ON EARTH is Reform doing to itself, and the millions who support it and look to it as the potential saviour of the UK? Who exactly is responsible for the utterly chaotic shambles that is unfolding in front of us? Members are now asking if this is a serious political force, or some toytown plaything of a handful of political wannabes who, with the first smell of success trying to create their own version of the Conservative Party, are now woefully out of their depth and unable to control the monster that they have created?
Four million individuals turned out and voted for a party that is now tearing itself apart. Their online vote counter didn’t look so clever when its tally was decreasing, demonstrating membership cancellations following on from this fracas. How many, like me, will just let their membership lapse when it is up for renewal, dismayed by the accusations showered around, topping off the insulting aspersions and change of course in recent months, that the combatants on either side now seem incapable of exercising restraint over?
Without Nigel Farage, the UK would still be stuck in the bureaucratic autocracy of the EU. We owe Nigel an eternal debt of gratitude. Without him, Reform would have been unlikely to win four million votes and five seats in the House of Lies. Rupert Lowe would not be an MP. Nigel’s victories are carved into history. He is a modern political icon, a legend in his own lifetime.
But we don’t live in the past, and former glories can’t feed our political vision; they can only provide the foundations for us to build the future. We live in the here and now; anything from the past has little currency in the present. Today is the first day of the rest of British politics. The current chaotic infighting is undermining the progress and goodwill Reform has secured over the past year and dismaying its millions of supporters – they deserve better than this collapse into a vicious, self-inflicted, entirely unnecessary and embarrassingly public war.
It feels akin to a classroom spat that has spilled out into the playground, with various factions piling in. I’ve listened to arguments from both sides of the dispute, and quite frankly I’m dismayed at the whole thing. Unlike a classroom disagreement, the Reform dispute has national repercussions; all the more reason for the participants to feel shame for what they are doing. It affects the future of our nation, and every one of us.
Whether they like it or not, those leading the Reform UK political party have a responsibility to the people who worked on their behalf across the country at the general election, those who placed enough trust in them to lend them their votes, and those now working across the land in setting up their national network of local party organisations. They have a responsibility to understand what drove their vote. This very public war, alongside excessive ‘woke’ vetting of candidates and officials, shows a disregard and disrespect for all those people. Former and now-excluded Reform activists to my own direct knowledge are deeply troubled by this.
The party should be building, not demolishing; not rejecting the very people it needs to grow its nationwide infrastructure and support its core base across the country; building a clear national vision of key objectives and the radical policies that demonstrate how those objectives will be achieved: a clear, cogent plan for every core issue affecting each objective. Reform is out of the honeymoon period, and they now must convince every prospective voter that they are competent, reliable and unwavering – a safe haven for their tick on the ballot paper. Every vote counts, and the details matter when converting those unsure or ‘non’ voters into Reform voters.
At the moment, they are not. That is why didn’t renew my Reform membership. I was not confident the party would stay the course on the policies that it implied it would pursue, that won it its foothold in Parliament and the key to the door of potential government. The current idiocy has confirmed to me that I made the correct decision. It seems that Reform is indeed trying to make itself into Tory 2.0.
On his Substack, Matt Goodwin made a reasoned defence and argument for continuing with Reform, and I respect his convictions. He misses the point entirely, however, as though it didn’t exist as the central issue. For core Reform supporters, this is not just about immigration overload, Net Zero madness, gender ideology and so on; it is about something much deeper, something that touches the soul and emotional patriotism, our ongoing culture and the ‘feel’ of our society, a conviction that goes beyond policy tick boxes.
‘We want our country back’ – the wish of so many people. The chant of the crowds. The cry of the disenfranchised patriot. The plea of the true conservative citizen.
We need Reform to address what it is that has been taken, that we demand be reclaimed and returned. What is that booty, purloined while we were asleep at the wheel or preoccupied by our own lives?
It is the quiet confidence that the set of rules – of conduct, of fairness, respect for the past, of a shared expectation of a common culture – will proceed before us and always welcome us at the dawning of each new day under a Reform administration. That our equality before the law, once envied around the world, setting us apart, unique, not arrogantly better, but distinct, would be determinedly reclaimed; bringing back that certain ease and comfort that we could stand apart from every other country and culture with confidence and pride.
Now, we have a Reform caterpillar that has emerged from its chrysalis as a colourless, amorphous entity, with no core philosophy or soul but rather with a faux pragmatism; afraid rather than fearless, seemingly not understanding (indeed giving way to) the tide of Islam with its free multicultural pass that will destroy our culture and heritage. A Reform caterpillar so afraid of losing its establishment foothold that it has gone defensive instead of forging ahead unabashedly.
Rupert Lowe insists the party must move on from being a party of protest. Ironically, that appears to be exactly what it is doing – if a reverse takeover of the Tories is Farage’s aim. Perhaps, instead of attacking each other, they could unite in kicking a few of the pimples on the Government’s backside. That place is so full of lies, and the docile greasy-pole-climbers espousing them, it deserves to be torn down. And sort out their semantics on what they stand for. A set of MPs with passion and clear patriotic conviction would make a pleasant change. It appears to be what Lowe represents; it was what Farage represented for so long. It’s what we thought we were voting for, not the conformist blob we are now being served up, nor this collapse into factionalism.
It’s time for an open, honest and non-vindictive debate about the party that we need and the party that they seem to want. Zia Yusuf and Nigel Farage cannot and should not want to close this debate down. Better now than in four years time.
