Ever since their defeat, many Tories have been on the airwaves smothering themselves with comfort blankets. They’ve been saying Farage and Reform are merely a ‘protest vote’. Are ‘far right’. Are ‘not Conservative’. But actually the evidence does not support this at all. Reform, we already know, rallied an electorate that is socially distinctive —is mainly older, leans toward the working-class and non-graduates, and tends to be outside the cities and university towns. This makes it ‘sticky’, more likely it will stick to Reform in the years ahead. And in his post-election poll, Lord Ashcroft finds that most of the people who voted for Reform did so because they ‘preferred the promises made by the party I voted for more than the promises of other parties’, and ‘I trusted the motives of the party I voted for more than those of other parties’. This does not sound like protest to me. It sounds like a very instrumental vote rooted in sincere and coherent concerns about the country. Furthermore, the top issue for these voters is immigration and asylum, once again underlining their coherent worldview.
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Samizdata quote of the day – Reform, not the Tories, is starting to inherit the Brexit realignmentJuly 8th, 2024 |
 46 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Reform, not the Tories, is starting to inherit the Brexit realignmentLeave a Reply |
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I didn’t vote Conservative because the party no longer represents my interests in the slightest. Even if they had presented a manifesto that did align well with my views I still wouldn’t vote for them as I simply don’t trust them, I view them as incorrigible liars. Reform are much more in line with my position and, so far, I have no reason to believe that they are not sincere. I don’t think that this is difficult to understand unless you are just really determined not to understand it. Protest votes mainly happen at by-elections.
The more the election moved along, the more strident the Tory party and nominally Tory press became, the less people listened to them.
All that guff about conscription just hammered in how out of touch these idiots were. They were told, time and again what they needed to DO (not say), but DO to oust Labour and they categorically refused to do it.
By calling the election, all Rishi did was to crystallise the failure.
For which neither the Tories, nor Labour have an answer.
The whole Rwanda scheme was a façade, costing a fortune and providing little more than a theoretical danger to the invading Islamic hordes.
Then again, Labour don’t even have that false hope to cling to, save an apparent preference for “Magical Thinking”.
Reality will hit home soon enough and the Reform MP’s will be there in Parliament to hammer the problem home. I doubt they will be as polite as the Tory opposition.
Go Reform!
John Galt: What makes you think that Labour wouldn’t welcome disaster? Disaster would hurt their most bitterly hated enemies, the revolting peasants, and the deepest desire of their piss-pumping hearts is to crush those peasants, making them suffer and killing as many as they can get away with in the process. The tales of a bright unicorn-rainbow future they spin are half Orwellian doublethink and half propaganda to keep the useful idiots in line.
It’s similar here in the US, with the Democratic Party and the Left more generally seeing the non-left as enemies in a Cold Civil War rather than as political opponents, and the GOP establishment being loyal and patriotic citizens of the Deep State of America who would rather line up for the guillotines the Democrats erect than commit the treason of siding with the enemy America of their own party’s base.
Farage is in the situation of Gandalf The White, having broken Saruman’s staff when it was clear that he was clearly working against the interests of the free peoples; it would be absurd to try to make alliances with Saruman and his Uruk-Hai rich parliamentary party.
Once Saruman is no longer a force, (the relatively easy part), he has then to turn his attention to Mordor.
I’ve watched several panel discussions by Democrat activists over the Biden debate debacle. What jumps out at me is that most of the participants cannot carry on a conversation without dragging Trump into it. It’s been 8 years and they are still stuck on Trump, instead of their own failings. There is no effort to craft a vision of the future that would appeal to working America, a vision that doesn’t just benefit the governing caste and their allies. Not to mention, they can’t offer a vision for the future that isn’t feudal or bleak.
In my lifetime this was the worst Tory campaign ever (I was too young to vote in 1997 and 2001 but I remember them, and the Tories were relatively competent back then compared to this utter shower).
I started off the election hostile enough to the Conservatives due to their ineptitude, especially about immigration. Reform under Richard Tice hadn’t enthused me though (and the local candidate seemed mediocre as well), and I was probably leaning towards either not voting or just meekly voting Conservative as the best of a load of rotten options.
All the ridiculous nonsense Sunak did early in the campaign – the national service policy, blatantly trying to bribe selfish boomers with quadruple lock pensions, the D-Day blunder, and all the other things Sunak did to prove he is terrible at politics – pushed me to the not voting camp.
When Farage got involved, well it felt like I could finally vote positively for something, even if the local Reform candidate was nothing to get that excited about.
The desperate rubbish from Tory media and BoJo and other swap creatures trying to smear Farage about ‘racism’ or ‘muh Russia’ just smacked of Project Fear all again, and just made me further hate the Tories and its media. I haven’t seen the data so can only speculate but maybe the Project Fear stuff still managed to get enough votes from boomers who still rely on TV and newspapers for what to think to prevent their extinction.
Post-election, the Tories seem to mostly be ‘learning’ the wrong lessons. Perhaps Twitter is unrepresentative but the Tory boys left on there are engaging in concern trolling and gaslighting. I think Reform should concentrate on building itself into a professional party, and let the Tories indulge in its factional disputes. While the likes of Sunak, BoJo, Alicia Kearns, and Tom Tugendhat are in that party, I think Reform are best to keep away.
@Martin
My suspicion is that the National Service Policy was promoted to win votes, but was also a policy that could be gracefully kicked into the long grass for ‘reasons’ if necessary. Rather like so many previous Conservative promises that evaporated when it came to doing anything. Immigration, proper Brexit and so on.
What reforms do Reform propose?
Our constitution and democracy needs protecting against the whims of governments. We need protection against a political class who can’t be trusted.
I recommend the Harrogate Agenda.
Only one party’s campaign reduced my 13-year-old daughter to floods of tears, and that was the Conservatives, with their idiotic conscription idea.
Nobody makes my daughter cry and gets away with it on my watch! I gleefully voted for Reform, and it will be a cold day in hell before I even consider voting Tory again.
In my lifetime this was the worst Tory campaign ever
Worst Tory campaign and worst Tory government.
However, a competent leader with a few competent shadow ministers and some proper Conservative policies would see the Tory party very quickly regain a lot of voters who deserted them this time. Remember, the Labour vote flatlined and the Tories tanked. I don’t argue this is the best outcome, but a lot of ‘middle England’ will quickly become alienated by new New Labour and won’t need much of a push to return to the fold.
Farage has said he want to repeal the CCA, Equality Act & leave ECHR. That is huge.
Good.
Don’t interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Go Reform!
On reflection, the Tories have been learning the wrong lessons for years.
David Cameron and George Osborne adopted Blairism right when the financial crisis, mass immigration, and the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts and Islamic terrorism at home were exposing how bankrupt New Labour ideology was.
Later, BoJo and co thought his 2019 victory was a mandate from Tory voters for mass immigration on a scale that made what we saw under Blair, Brown, Cameron and May look moderate in comparison.
Whenever anyone, anywhere, ever has dismissed something as, “Merely a protest vote” you know they’re fucked.
The Tories have been hoovering up right wing votes under false pretenses ever since they ousted Thatcher. You’ve had a good run, guys, but no scam lasts forever.
It has not been mentioned anywhere AFAIK, but the most recent UK General Election was held after extensive boundary changes to Parliamentary constituencies which were considered to have been in the Conservatives’ favour as they evened out seats per capita, thereby reducing a number of smaller constituencies with Labour MPs, and increasing the numbers of seats in areas with growing populations and reducing them in areas with falling populations (the credit money drag towards London).
So the election result is even worse than it looks for the Conservatives.
First if a person is talking about British Independence – they should say so, not use terms like “Brexit” which can mean just about anything. Independence is a clear term – “Brexit” is not.
As for the Reform Party – it has five seats in the House of Commons.
The Reform Party exists, in practice if not in theory, to give the Labour Party a huge majority in the House of Commons – which it has done (it has fulfilled its function – done the job, even though the people in it, and the people who voted for it, did NOT know that this was what its function was). The Reform Party does NOT exist to get lots of seats in the House of Commons itself – indeed it was lucky to get 5.
However, the Conservative Party brought this upon itself – because the leadership was unable (or unwilling) to get rid of the present system of rule by officials and “experts” (such as the Bank of England). Promises to end mass immigration, control government spending, reduce taxation and end “Woke” (Critical Theory Marxist) censorship and persecution, are pointless whilst the system of rule by officials and “experts” remains in place. There is no point making promises if, even if you win an election, you have no power to deliver the promises – to make them reality.
It was grim indeed to watch someone like Jacob Rees-Mogg (as a minister) give orders to officials to end their “Woke” (Critical Theory Marxist) activities – only to have them ignore his orders and carry on regardless (full disclosure – I know some of the senior officials who ignored him, and ignored the orders of other Conservative ministers). “Sack them!” – not really possible under our system of governance (as Disraeli, of all people, warned might eventually happen).
If it is indeed not possible to get rid of the system of rule buy officials and “experts” (as some people have told me) then we should stop having elections – because elections to put people “in Office” rather than in POWER, are pointless.
I suppose I should be at the conference today – but I am just too tired, and talking about what we will do in “five years time” just reminds me that the United Kingdom does not have five years.
Sadly I believe that the United Kingdom is going to collapse – as is the West in general. However, it is possible that I am wrong – that there will still be a United Kingdom in five years time.
So I wish Suella Braverman, Mark Littlewood, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the others at the conference well – the Conservative Party has rather more than 5 seats in the House of Commons so it remains the only game in town – if (IF) it can get rid of the current system of rule by official and “experts”.
I will try and watch the conference by the link I have been sent.
In France the National Rally (the French version of the Reform Party) got considerably more than 5 seats in the National Assembly – but it still came third.
Would the National Rally have been able to save France had it won a majority in the National Assembly? Most likely not – as (for example) Macron would still have been President of the Republic and France would still have been subject to European Union institutions – such as the “court” which is fining Hungary one million Euros a day for refusing to take in migrants. And, contrary to its reputation, the National Rally is rather “open to compromise” with the institutions (which is fatal – as the failure of the Conservative Party government in the United Kingdom shows, you either defeat the institutions or they defeat you – there is no real “compromise”).
But we will never really know – as the National Rally did not win a majority in the National Assembly. Perhaps they could have saved France – again we will never know.
An historical “might have been” – like the old might-have-been about the Emperor Majorian not being betrayed and murdered, “he could have saved the Western Roman Empire – it might-have-been”.
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that I am WRONG – and that the United Kingdom does have five years.
The first action of an incoming Conservative government led by Suella Braverman (or whoever – even Nigel Farage if there is some alliance) must be to end the independence of the Bank of England and all other agencies (abolish them – or have their staff hired and fired by elected ministers) and to abolish all the “protections” of officials – allowing them to be hired and fired by elected ministers.
“But that means the end of both the independent agencies and the Civil Service!” – exactly and that is what needs to be done, or no real reform can take place – as “personal are policy” if officials do not believe in the policies of the elected government those policies will be still-born.
But I do not believe we have time to do it – five years time is too late. Too late for Suella Braverman, too late for Nigel Farage, too late for all of us.
Still let us hope I am wrong.
Not just in practice, in theory too. The idea is to ultimately destroy the Tory Party. The regrettable price is putting Labour in power for while because Reform’s leadership believes the ‘Conservatives’ are only incrementally better than Labour, so ultimately who cares if there are Red Blairites or Blue Blairites in Downing Street?
Untrue, Reform’s leadership understand this crystal clear, and frankly the Reform voters I know also understand this is a long war and 5 seats is a bridgehead. I see no remorse at the size of the Labour majority, just regrets the Tories were not dis-aggrandised even more. An absolute prerequisite to replacing the ‘Conservative’ Party is destroying their ability to be seen as “the only alternative to ghastly Labour”. Amongst Reform voters, the notion they are just two cheeks of the same arse is widely held. This is a view I also share.
Untrue. This is a process and Reform does indeed hope to get many more seats in 2029. They came second in 98 constituencies so that is well within the realm of possibility. But to do so, as much damage as possible must be done to the Tories (a process the ‘Conservatives’ will help with over the next few years as it chokes on its contradictions).
@Paul Marks
One of President Trump’s last acts as President was to launch ‘Schedule F’, but didn’t have enough time to catch on. From Wikipedia:
It was quickly cancelled by Biden. I’ve wondered if the threat of Schedule F stiffened the sinews of opposition to Donald Trump. Perhaps the ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ is just people protecting their cushy jobs and those of their fellow travellers?
Big countries act like gangsters, small countries act like whores.
If you are a globalist and don’t believe in nations, then you are, by definition a whore, and there is only one client – the grotesque man/slug hybrid dr strangelove and the WEF cabal of degenerates.
Reform, Le Pen, AFD in the fatherland and others are saying we aren’t whores and don’t want your “money”.
Perhaps we should stop referring to a “political” class and start referring to a whore class instead.
Anything vaguely “globalist” – party, individual, organisation – simply cannot deliver what people with even the most lukewarm attachment to the nation want or need.
Tactical voting – yes that can be justified – but the uni party is the whore party, whatever its outward manifestation and apparent differentiation between its subdivisions.
Voting tory/labour/limp dump…at best can be seen as a sort of chemotherapy – that at best can only slow the decay.
The cancer needs to be excised!
Paul:
Unlike you, I don’t have a problem with the word “Brexit”. I think most people know what it means. But I do agree about the problem of the rule by officials and “policy”. Labour is of course all in favour of this, as the officials are on their side. The disgraceful appointments of Gray and Vallance only demonstrate this publicly. They do not care who knows it.
Sadly, Boris spaffed away his majority on his lazy policy of massive legal immigration. Like much of what he said, the fabled “Australian style points based system” was so much bullshit. As to illegal immigration, we needed to say to France that any undocumented migrants who arrived on Britain’s shores would be immediately returned. It’s what we always used to do, before the policy blob took over. But that would have required leadership and courage, and we have lacked that for a long time. Since 1992 I would say.
Paul Marks, you are advocating not for a return to a Conservative Party ante Cameron et al, you are advocating for a Javier Milei.
Dare I say that even Margaret Thatcher (pbuh) herself wouldn’t have the trousers to do what you believe needs to be done.
Furthermore, there is no one within the Parliamentary Party (or certainly none that I know of) who have the stones to do what you advocate. The Tories are not the route to redemption.
Martin: In my lifetime this was the worst Tory campaign ever (I was too young to vote in 1997 and 2001 but I remember them, and the Tories were relatively competent back then compared to this utter shower).
Agreed. One thing that shocked me, and I am not easily shocked, is how I got the impression that the Tories had just given up. I’d go so far as to say that Mr Sunak just wanted the nightmare to be over, so he could step down and let the other lot take over. The gambling on the election date by some senior figures was also part of a sort of moral turpitude that is a symbol of a party in decline and near a state of death.
There are so many attack lines that the Tories could have used on Labour, but part of the problem is that by being into a form of statism, the Tories were unable to be credible. Take tax levels, or the absurd tobacco smoking ban, or calls for national military service, the Online Safety Bill (a total disaster) and so on. On every point, the Tories were doing what we expect a socialist, nannying, authortarian party to do. So as and when Labour does some of these things, the Tories have zero traction. None.
If I am less impressed by Mr Farage and Reform than some are here, it is that I want to see far more radicalism, and commitment to freedom along the line, than I see. It is in danger of at times being about only two or three issues at most (particularly immigration and maybe Net Zero), but it is not sufficiently tied around a philosophy of liberty.
The irony of all this is that were the LibDems a genuinely liberal party, not a Leftist/statist force in yellow clothes and doing juvenile stunts, Reform would, in my view, not need to exist. The “Orange Book” tradition of classical liberalism is one that I have probably the most affinity with.
I think that the total number of votes that Reform got is significant. Because, right or wrong, our FPTP system dealt them only five seats is less significant than what their overall share was. Labour’s popular support has actually gone down, it is a quirk of the system that they only won because their opposition was split. Some blame Reform, I blame those who still voted Conservative for no better reason than them not being Labour.
Paul, Feel free to keep flogging your Tory dead horse, but the country has moved on.
Get with the programme.
I think that the Reform fans here might want to reflect on whether Farage’s comments about Putin and Russia/Ukraine, which while some claim were taken out of context, were still wrong (in my view) might have hurt the party a bit. That was an unforced error.
Being against Net Zero is enough on its own. One of the most destructive and suicidal policies in world history. Not to mention insane and utterly pointless.
Farage is entitled to his opinion on the matter. He seems to think that his view is just an expression of “Realpolitik”, which is probably fair.
For myself, I don’t think there is any “Fair Dealing” to be done with Putin as he is as devious as a snake and would repudiate Russian burdens of any agreement while demanding that NATO and the Ukrainians fully abide by theirs to the last dot and comma.
This is a proxy war, started by Putin against NATO and claims that NATO and the West were instigators going back to the original invasion in 2014 (as well as events in Georgia) are pretty weak stuff, even from the perspective of Russian propaganda as a whole.
So, yes, I’m fully supportive of NATO and Western European aid to the Ukrainians for as long as the Ukrainians are prepared to continue fighting, but realistically, I also have to acknowledge that this cannot go on forever.
Are we all just waiting for Putin to fall out of a 15 storey window in Moscow? Because I doubt that’s going to happen any time soon. He’s more likely to succumb to whatever cancer or neurological condition he’s currently suffering from than a Kremlin coup.
Still. Fingers crossed.
My vote for Reform was done with completely open eyes and with foreknowledge that the result would be cementing a Labour majority. Maintaining the illusion that the Conservative party that has existed since Cameron’s rise is anything other than less-left Social Democratic party gains nothing.
While I disagree with Farage on Ukraine, it’s not a deal-breaker. I also had the impression his position was closer to that of the old “sphere of influence” international relations wonks like Mearsheimer (who I also disagree with).
D.Joys:
This hypothesis seems to be falsified by TDS going back to Trump’s election in 2016.
And yet, the underlying idea — that the Deep State perceives Trump as an existential threat, and that is the origin of TDS — is very likely correct, in my opinion. But the Deep State perceived Trump as an existential threat as early as November 2016.
I agree with John Galt on this. I dislikes Farage’s remarks because he is simply wrong. But being wrong about how we got here is not the same as saying he would back Putin. He has been quite clear he regards Putin’s attack on Ukraine as unacceptable.
He’s more likely to succumb to whatever cancer or neurological condition he’s currently suffering from than a Kremlin coup.
That’s my guess, yes.
I read all these pro Reform comments here, and while I wish it could be otherwise, I recognise that in our electoral system there’s only room for two parties to be truly relevant and so Reform can only ever deliver unrepresentative Labour landslides, as they have just done. They need to find a way to merge with the Tories in some sort of LibDem style, or otherwise condemn us to endless Socialism…
AWM, about a hundred years ago the two main parties were the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Liberals were replaced as the party of “the left” by Labour. Given that the Conservatives are conservative in name only, why should Reform not take the place of the Conservatives in the same manner? It is absolutely not the case that the rise of Reform needs to condemn us to endless Labour governments (or socialism, which is not the same).
How is a choice between socialist Conservatives and socialist Labour not condemning us to endless socialism?
I am sometimes asked how I would vote if I had a dreadful Conservative Party candidate.
I can dodge that sort of question by saying (truthfully) “but I do not – the Conservative candidate for Kettering was a good candidate” – true, but still dodging the question.
I suppose the truthful answer would be “is the Conservative candidate going to cause more harm than the Labour candidate?” as, apart from in five (5) seats – voting for Reform was, in effect, voting for Labour.
In some seats it could be argued that the Conservative candidate WOULD do more harm than the Labour candidate.
For example, imagine that the candidate was Damien Green – head of the Orwellian named “One Nation Group” that wants us all to be “Global Citizens” and hates the nation (sorry hates “narrow nationalism”) – true the Labour candidate most likely believes the same things as Mr Green (a Guardian newspaper type), but Mr Green, it could be argued, would do more harm if elected.
Or imagine that the Conservative candidate was Colonel Tobias Ellwood (of the infamous 77th Brigade) – a person who supports the Taliban (yes – the Taliban) because they are very keen on “Solar Energy” (no I am not making that up) and whose 77th Brigade treated the British public during Covid, in terms of propaganda and psychological warfare, as if they were an enemy population in time of war.
“How dare you Mr Marks – Colonel Ellwood is a very brave man, he gave medical aid to a police officer who had been mortally wounded by a terrorist attack”.
Yes indeed Colonel Ellwood is a very brave man – so is the character of “Colonel Moran” (“the bravest man in the British army”) in the Shylock Holmes stories, or many real life people who I would not support.
Courage is a indeed a virtue – but it is not enough on its own.
In those 5 seats people said for years that voting for the Referendum party, or UKIP, or the Brexit party, or Reform is the same as voting for Labour. And then eventually Reform managed to win those seats. If it wasn’t for that line of thinking those seats might have been won by UKIP earlier. It is not the Conservative party’s right to have our votes Paul, and the Conservative party needs to learn that.
Given the political infighting of the Tories at the present time, they seem intent on refusing to learn the lessons that the recent election has attempted to teach them.
“When you’re in a hole, quit digging”.
The solution from the corrupted and worthless “One Nation” Tories is more of the same of what the country has rejected.
If people wanted a Social Democrat government then they’d vote for the Lib Dems, not the bloody Tories.
They’re finished.
Go Reform!
This. I voted Tory until 2008 & then stopped voting for anyone when I realised they’re no less my enemy than Labour, so I don’t give a tinker’s damn which of them is in power. Is Reform everything I’ve ever wanted? No, but they’ll do, they’re a serviceable weapon for the coming fight. I’m now voting again.
Parliamentary Tories say they support all the right things, but their actions showed they’re no different to Labour, they just say what their supporters want to hear (like me once). Banning fags? Screwing over landlords? Refusing to repeal Blair’s laws? Can’t defend the borders? And if they don’t stand for private property, what fucking use are they? Backing the lunatic Net Zero bollocks? How many Tories voted against the obviously barmy Climate Change Act in 2008? Five, that’s how many. FIVE.
Doesn’t matter who’s leading the Tories, the problem is the party itself. Fuck the lot of them, I’ll be with Farage for as long as it takes.
Elections in the United Kingdom are about individual candidates in individual seats.
So the William F. Buckley rule applies – “vote for the most conservative candidate you-think-can-win”.
So, under the “Buckley rule”, if that is a Conservative Party candidate you vote for them, and if that is a Reform Party candidate – you vote for them, that would be the “Buckley rule” applied to British circumstances.
There was one seat of the five that Reform won where they were neck-and-neck with Labour – for a pro liberty person to NOT vote for the Reform Party candidate in that seat was, in effect, to vote for Labour.
So in-that-seat (IN THAT SEAT) voting for the Conservative Party candidate was, in effect, voting for the Labour Party candidate.
I repeat – in the United Kingdom elections are about individual candidates in individual seats.
Study your local area – get to know who has a chance of winning, and then apply the “Buckley rule”.
As for the national situation – I doubt that the United Kingdom will survive the next five years, but let us assume that I am MISTAKEN….
If I am wrong, and the United Kingdom is still about in five years time, then the Conservative voters and the Reform Party voters must come-together.
There is no chance at all (none) if the Conservative voters and the Reform Party voters do not come together.
What form that “coming together” takes is not for me to decide – but it must happen.
“vote for the most conservative candidate you-think-can-win”.
The Conservatives aren’t conservative, that’s the problem.
“Banning fags? Screwing over landlords? Refusing to repeal Blair’s laws? Can’t defend the borders? And if they don’t stand for private property, what fucking use are they? Backing the lunatic Net Zero bollocks? How many Tories voted against the obviously barmy Climate Change Act in 2008? Five, that’s how many. FIVE.”
Exactly this, I detest everything about them, when there wasn’t an alternative I spoiled the ballot rather than vote for them, why would I vote for a party that relentlessly pursues policies that do real harm to both me personally and to the country as a whole? And, if Reform prop them up by getting into bed with them I will be forced back into not voting.
One* problem with applying the Buckley rule in the UK is that Conservative MPs choose the leader of the Conservative Party. That needs to be taken into account when deciding whether to support your local Conservative candidate.
* I can probably think up other problems; and so can you.
For instance, it has been remarked (even by Paul Marks himself, in another thread) that being conservative is pointless unless one is also willing to fight for conservative principles, no holds barred.
Stonyground – some are, some are not. It depends on the individual candidate.
Snorri – obviously I do not want people such as Dameon Green or Tobias Ellwood deciding who is leader of the Conservative Party.
As for the Party Manifestos – on balance the Conservative Party manifesto meant more regulations not less (it called for getting rid of some regulations – but called for other regulations and the latter outweighed the former) – but the Labour Party manifesto was much worse.
Oddly enough the Liberal Democrat Party was, on regulations, the worst of all – I was astonished by how much more regulation it called for, it was well to the left of Labour.
Although, sadly, it is all a very artificial discussion – as the United Kingdom is unlikely to survive another five years.
Grim times indeed.
Still – if the country is still in existence in five years, those who are still alive (very unlikely to include me) will have to do what they can.
At present there’s no chance of a Tory-Reform merger. 50pc of conservative members would like it, but (1) it doesn’t appear 50pc Tory MPs want it and (2) the other 50pc would likely cause massive amounts of trouble in the event a merger was proposed. Likewise much of the Tory media became very hostile to Reform during the campaign.
Yes, Braverman has said nice things about Reform but she’s been ran through the mud by her colleagues for this, and it looks more likely she’ll be Reform’s 6th MP rather than the next Tory leader.
A merger wouldn’t necessarily improve things for either party anyway. The kind of bourgeois nimbys who voted Lib Dem this time rather than Tory will be probably keep voting Lib Dem if the Tories merged with Reform. Similarly a lot of working class people who voted for Reform in Labour areas will probably never vote Tory ever again due to legacy of Thatcher and now the betrayal of Boris Johnson to those voters. They’ll vote Reform because they aren’t Tory or Labour but won’t vote Tory even if Reform becomes Tory because the Tories have immense baggage that Reform don’t.