How unfortunate, the one party stronger on immigration than Reform is being overlooked - Henry Bolton

Jenrick could never compete with Farage’s rather bombastic but highly effective and populistic presentation, nor did he have to.

Jenrick’s thoughtfulness and ability to consult, listen and then decide gave him a grasp of detail that would have had Farage on the back foot and, I do believe, would have largely re-established the credibility of the Conservative Party as a truly conservative party.

But Badenoch it was. Badenoch the “no radical change and steady as she goes” candidate.

The error has become obvious since Badenoch was elected leader. While her performance has been adequate at Prime Minister’s Questions, she has been largely absent at all other times, leaving the country without an effective leader of His Majesty’s Opposition and, arguably, contributing to the subsequent increase in the shift of support from her party to Reform.

Now here’s the thing… Reform UK, which clearly has significant momentum, is not growing so much because of its policies, but because of Farage’s personality and the Conservatives continued failure to be a credibly conservative party and to project patriotic, social and cultural conservatism effectively.

Yes, Reform has a passionately loyal following. Farage has become a cult figure for many, and the party’s list of intentions matches those of people who are sick and tired of the country descending into woke anarchy and of being told their traditions, culture and speech must defer to those of immigrant communities, communities whose rapid growth threatens the very identity of Britishness.

These people are also inspired by Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” creed; they want to be proud of their country again and see Farage, particularly given his relationship with Trump, as their one and only hope. They feel there’s nowhere else to turn.

However… deeper analysis raises red flags of concern.

Despite protestations to the contrary, Reform remains, in a practical sense, undemocratic. It is, primarily, a support platform from which Nigel can project.

I’ve already pointed out his cult figure status, and history contains lessons for us when it comes to cult figures that people turn to in order to rebuild their pride in their identity but are supported by a party that they control, and that is there to help them, as an individual, to project, rather than to practice democracy.

Farage also, famously, doesn’t do detail. He’s not interested in detail. Nor is Richard Tice. But crucially, detailed analysis is the basis for sound decision-making, and detailed pre-planning is vital to success in implementing any decision or policy.

Detail in government is extremely important. Even many of Reform’s supporters acknowledge this weakness, but excuse it by saying that it doesn’t matter yet because Reform isn’t actually in power, and they’re sure that it’ll change if Reform does come to power.

But, surely, that was the problem with the Conservatives. They said they’d do all sorts of things, but didn’t, primarily because they never worked out or understood how to. They were incompetent. After all, the reason why we’ve still not seen all the benefits of Brexit, the reason its implementation has been, if we’re honest, chaotic, is because neither Boris Johnson nor Farage had a plan.

As far as Nigel was concerned, we’d won the Referendum, and that was job done. There was no vision as to what we wanted for the UK and British people 20 to 25 years down the road, and there was no plan as to how to attain that vision. I was told,

“I’m not interested in the detail Henry”. Look where that’s got us. Farage was later persuaded to re-enter the fray and joined Leave Means Leave with Tice, and that in turn led to the Brexit Party and Reform UK, but still, Reform has not presented a vision or any detail to attain it.

Labour is different. Labour simply seems to have deliberately lied about its intentions.

I, like most of the country, am tired of hearing promises from politicians and political parties. I don't believe lists of promises and pledges any more. They might be sincere intentions, but that doesn’t mean the party concerned has actually thought them through.

I want to see how the parties promising things intend to deliver them. I want to see what their objectives are, what they will do, how they will do it, with what they will do it, who will be tasked with doing it, how those people/departments/agencies will be held to account for doing it, what legislation needs to be introduced or amended, what it will cost, where the money will come from, and how cross-government direction and unity of effort will be achieved and maintained to deliver the desired effects.

Reform, along with the Conservatives, can answer almost none of these things.

Reform also faces another obstacle to electoral success, one entirely of its own making.

Most people in the UK don’t want political parties gaining electoral advantage because of their spending power. Rather it is their policies and performance that should influence electoral results.

Most people don’t want British politicians or parties to be able to sell political influence or to be in hock to their donors. We all know some donors try to buy networking advantages, influence or privileges, but we all dislike it, think it’s wrong and, if we’re honest, we know it’s bad for the democracy and governance of the country.

On this score, Reform has, I believe, done itself no favours. The party can’t legitimately claim to rise above the purchase of political influence when its three largest donors, Tice, Zia Yousef and Nick Candy, are now Deputy Leader, Chairman and Treasurer of the party, respectively.

I’m not aware of any process by which the party elected them and the idea that if Elon Musk were to donate tens of millions in some way, he wouldn’t, as a result, have any additional influence over the party’s decisions if Farage reaches Downing Street, is quite ridiculous.

However, despite Reform’s obvious shortcomings, the Conservatives have left increasingly concerned - angry even - patriotic, social and cultural conservatives nowhere else to turn to.

Or have they…

I find it interesting, and unfortunate, that in all this the quiet, thoroughly decent and thoughtful William Clouston and his Social Democratic Party have been overlooked.

The SDP has been advocating many of the policies that Reform presents, and many more besides, long before Reform came into being, and it’s arguably a lot stronger on immigration than Reform and certainly more thoughtful about how to deal with it.

The difference is that, unlike Reform, they’ve done the analysis, have quietly got on with the rather dull work of doing the detail, reject the sale of political influence to donors and oppose the selling off of national infrastructure and assets to foreign entities.

As John Cleese said, about being told of the SDP: “I was so happy, because it was like going for a walk and bumping into an old friend who you were quite sure was dead”. It is far from dead.