Dear Editor
I watched an interview on YouTube between Zia Yusuf of Reform UK and Peter McCormack which was striking.
Yusuf is clearly a highly intelligent man with both ambition and vision for the country and whilst there must be doubts about Reform, there is certainty about Labour and the Tories. They have a track record of national decline stretching back to 1997 and the election of Blair.
Is Farage the Thatcher of the 21st century? No, I don’t believe so. Whilst Thatcher had to mechanistically reform a nationalised nation, Farage must philosophically address its cultural disintegration.
Thatcher could employ the forces of patriotism and jingoism without a thought given to accusations of racism. Farage must navigate the cultural influences of tens of millions of immigrants, which he can’t ignore because they will never go away.
Thatcher didn’t operate in the geopolitical environment with attendant threats and opportunities Farage will inherit, which can never be addressed by Starmer’s idealistic, schoolboy politics and the Tories’ devotion to preservation of the party at all costs.
President Xi of China stated in 2023 that the world will change more in the next five years than it has in the last one hundred years. Like him or loathe him, he was anticipating the consequences of the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine. No matter which side prevails, the consequences will be monumental for Western Europe and, by definition, the rest of the world. Thatcher never faced anything on this level.
Conventional politicians like Starmer and the Tories don’t recognise the opportunities change inevitably creates; it’s not in their nature. Reform, by contrast, are an aspirational political movement, not just a party, and have the leadership with the entrepreneurial ambition to seek out opportunity.
Yusuf is open that Reform don’t have all the answers, and that they will make mistakes. Can anyone recall a spokesman for any political party in the UK, with the prospect of winning a General Election, being honest enough to make that declaration?
Unless Reform drop the ball catastrophically over the next four years, they have my vote.
AKA RHS
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