The political chainsaw
Why Reform will continue to rise
Labour is already dying on their arse and they have barely been in power for four months. In the annals of electoral history this has to be the fastest collapse ever. They were never popular - they won big because our electoral system shepherded people to them as the only way to flush the Tories out. Most people disliked Starmer before the election and after the briefest of post election bounces - it lasted until people left the voting booth - people have carried on disliking him only on steroids.
This fact is reflected in the polling where Labour has plunged to 28% with Starmer’s personal rating putting him just ahead of Adolf Hitler in terms of positivity. But also the voting statistics with their support falling in 80% of all council seats defended since the general election and them only winning 60% of the contests. This is not the sign of a government that people like, want or even care to tolerate - as my pinned tweet says I believe they are going sub 20% in short order.
But who will be the winner from Labour’s epic collapse? To whom will people turn as they begin to hunt around for some alternatives? The Tories have of course elected Kemi Badenoch as their leader who is slowly getting her feet under the table. Could she be the person that helps to reignite public support for the party? Certainly she is a breath of fresh air in terms of bluntness which many will probably appreciate after decades of softly spoken vanilla politicians. However I am less than convinced that she and they will be the main beneficiaries.
The Tories are still too freshly rejected by the public and have yet to apologise for their many sins whilst in office. I simply can’t see public opinion turning around in a serious way for now. The party itself remains divided on pretty much every major issue of the day and so Badenoch will struggle to define a bold new direction which will capture the public mood. Instead I suspect she will attempt to sound bold without doing much to placate the parliamentary party. Basically waiting it out and hoping to gain from Labour’s fall.
I am sure this will pick up some of the liberal Tories in the home county shires who abandoned the party for the Lib Dems. It will be just the sort of non offensive and utterly pointless politics that they enjoy. Do nothing scary, do nothing offensive that might upset the dinner party set. In fact don’t do anything except offer to cut taxes. Just leave them alone so they can enjoy their ski mini breaks and avocado on toast. Fine, if that is what floats your boat but that is not where I believe the emergent majority in the country is.
There is a tsunami of public rage which is building in the UK and across the West against the current failed status quo. This first emerged in 2016 with Brexit and Trump but is now rising everywhere. The people behind this are angry at the economic settlement which is blatantly not working for the majority anymore, are fed up with the collapsed state of the country, more and more are enraged about the cultural vandalism of our weak elites and are deeply upset about mass migration and yes Islam.
Robert Jenrick got this - Kemi maybe does - the majority of the parliamentary Conservative party does not. Most of them think a quick nip tuck and more noise and less action should be good enough. Just stay in that mythical centre ground that apparently elections are won from. Most of them don’t seem to grasp that as more and more of the public move political positions the “centre” moves as well. Liberal Blairism is not the centre - it is more and more the reserve of our elites and other nutters who can’t grasp the world has changed.
This is why I think Reform are going to be the big winners over the coming period. Farage has the best political instincts of any politician in the UK and he rightly read the room before the election and realised that something was changing. Furthermore I suspect he grasps that the differing movements across the West are starting to feed on each in terms of ideas but also by driving enthusiasm for the possibility of change. None will be more potent in the UK than the US election which for language reasons resonates.
People may not like Trump personally but many will be enthused by the size of his win and the possibility of change to stultified political system which has long since been populated by self serving careerists - sounds familiar no? I believe this could electrify the British political landscape as Trump actually takes power and begins to implement many of his bold policies. “Look at what is possible” will become a rallying cry amongst people who have again switched off to Westminster and beyond.
I suspect Reform is going to flank the mainstream parties on all the main issues by simply being willing to talk about them. Yes it is as simple as that and it underlines the utter sham which is the British political system now. After promising change during Brexit the main parties have long since stopped even pretending to deliver it and have instead done what they always do which is to cluster together on all the big questions or simply by refusing to talk about them - ably assisted by their stenographers in the media.
Historically this left the British public with nowhere to go which was the plan however it is different now and Reform is going to provide the escape valve for millions of voters who have had enough. They are going to bang the drum about our elites net zero obsession which Starmer has just doubled down on, talk about the social and economic cost of mass migration, discuss the failing British state and its inability to even do the basics and yes discuss the impact of DEI on both our culture and how our institutions function.
They are going to paint our mainstream parties as extreme for failing to do anything about these issues. This will go hand in hand with Labour and the Tories attempting to paint Reform as extreme for daring to talk about the same issues let alone daring to oppose them. They will do this as they are stuck by their own rhetoric, historical choices and the fact that both parliamentary parties can’t accept that the British public is no longer interested in their weird political cult.
This is happening across the West.
An utter failure of the political mainstream to talk about the mounting crisis in each country let alone take action is driving people away to those who are willing to discuss them and are offering up policy alternatives leaving the historical parties looking like beached whales as public opinion retreats. In the few places where the mainstream opposition are willing to respond, like in Canada they are gaining from the shifting public mood but in plenty of others they are not.
The Reform wave will gather force over the coming period with them burning through the Labour heartlands in the local elections in 2025 and there is a good possibility of them becoming the second or third largest party in Wales in the Welsh elections in 2026. This will put to bed the idea the party is a flash in a pan. The rise of alternatives on all sides of the political spectrum is not going away. However the idea that the big legacy parties can just squat in their mythical centre is finished as is their ability to swerve the big questions by simply cuddling the opposition tight.
It will be especially interesting to see how the net zero issue plays out as reality is starting to bite. Labour and the Tories threw Port Talbot and Grangemouth under the bus and they are busy throwing the North Sea under the bus as well via their tax raids. This will impact support in places like South Wales and Aberdeenshire. But this is just the beginning with the quotas on electric cars kicking up a notch this year meaning that ICE cars will become far more expensive on the primary and secondary markets. It also wouldn’t surprise me to see car plant closures in the coming period. Then shortly after there will be extra charges on imported fertiliser which will drive up food costs. The idea that the state is going to tread more lightly in our lives and net zero is some golden opportunity sounds ever more ridiculous.
What amazes me is that neither of the major parties really seems to grasp that it is one continuing and mounting crisis of the liberal status quo which started in 2016 and spread as I said it would to the rest of the West but especially Europe. More and more of the public sees the entire worldview as a failure and its proponents as out of touch which is why the distance between the public and the establishment yaws open ever more each year. For that is the big divide now - between those who have done well out of the liberal world and the increasing majority who have not. The crisis is coming to a head as the majority is now so large it can’t be ignored and it is bending the democratic system to its will one way or another.
It is this majority which feels ever more left out, culturally under threat and economically depressed screaming at a political and cultural elite to change or die. One of those outcomes will be forthcoming over this period as democracy and the market work their magic on our institutions via votes and money. One way or other the majority will be heard and some sort of democratic control restored with meaningful representation put in place even if that means binning treaties and legislation which binds parliament and thus the will of the people.
Most of the current crop of politicians are creatures of that system and simply can't imagine something different which is why they are so blind to the oncoming juggernaut of public rage which will punch anything out of its path. Do they really think the public is just going to accept mass illegal migration because of some treaty or that they will be cold so our elites can parade around on the world stage? Alarmingly such is the level of disconnect I actually think many do especially in Labour which is why I am confident of Reform hammering them.
Let me be clear, Reform may or may not have the answers to our problems but for many people now they are a weapon, a chainsaw to be used on the British establishment. More and more people don’t really care about the details, they just want to hurt those they hold responsible again and again. For they have realised that only by hurting the system will change become possible. What should worry the clever people in charge is how much of the public now feels this way and the sheer guttural hatred they feel towards them.
We are rotting in slow motion and the people in charge don’t seem to care if it means changing anything that impacts their worldview. I am not alone in seeing this and hence the wave of anger and demand for change. It is time for something and someone new. The current crop have failed us all - I want my Trump moment as the liberal blob clearly didn’t learn from my Brexit one.