Politics: an unfillable void

By Richard North - October 14, 2024

Although there is plenty going on to fuel the media news machine, when it comes to domestic politics, I cannot help but feel that we’re in a weird world of make-believe, trapped in a parallel universe, where all the main actors have agreed to talk about everything and anything but the issues that matter.

I’ve felt this way for some time, but my growing unease about the “state we’re in”, was given a sharp jolt by some exchanges on Twitter, where, increasingly, the real news is found as long as the right filters are applied.

The exchanges in question were triggered by Gwain Towler – until recently press person for Reform and before that Ukip. Challenged by “far right” activist Steve Laws about his relations with far-left “Hope not Hate” (HnH) activists, Towler admitted that he had worked with the group.

“In about 2010”, he wrote, “one of the staff would run names past a HnH staff member”. Ukip, he says, “was riddled with former NF (National Front) and BNP (British National Party) fanatics, we didn’t want racists then or now. So yes, we did. It was effective”.

The details had emerged from a video interview with the Spectator, in an almost throwaway comment about weeding out members of the party’s NEC who had “far-right” sympathies and wanted closer relations with BNP’s leader, Nick Griffin.

In a further tweet Towler admitted that a “colleague checked names to ensure that those trying to suborn the party were removed”. UKIP, he said, “banned people with membership of the BNP. They were welcome to campaign for the BNP, but not while wearing UKIP rosettes. The BNP failed as it did not have support”.

What is significant about this, without dwelling on the details, is that the exchange has unleashed a torrent of hostile comment, pointing to a growing divide in the politics of the right, where supporters of Farage and his Reform Party are becoming increasingly disillusioned with The Great Leader.

The cracks have been showing for some little time, though, when in an interview on GB News with Steve Edginton, Farage turned his face against the idea of mass deportation of illegal immigrants.

Pressed on the issue, he said that it was “literally impossible” to do, explaining that “for us” (Reform) “at the moment, it’s a political impossibility”. Thus, he retorted: “I’m not going to get dragged down the route of mass deportations or anything like that. If I say I support mass deportations, that’s all anybody will talk about for the next 20 years. So it’s pointless even going there”.

Farage further queered his pitch when, in the same interview, he blandly told Edginton that the demographic change brought about by mass immigration was “not a concern of mine”.

He elaborated on this by expressing his concern at the lack of integration, saying: “I’m very concerned that we have whole areas of our towns and cities that are unrecognisable as being English. But they’re not unrecognisable as being English because of skin colour, they’re unrecognisable because of culture”.

Pete picked him up on this in a long Twitter post, remarking that this was a “mealy-mouthed way of saying that demographics matter”, but was something that Farage was simply not prepared to concede.

With him also refusing to countenance a remigration policy, this effectively excludes Reform from the sharp end of the immigration debate, leaving a political vacuum which has been quickly filled by Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick.

Says Pete, “this is classic Farage”, and indeed it is. Although now leading the Reform Party, having left Brexit behind with Ukip and then his Brexit Party, Farage is still locked into the Eurosceptic party model which guided his actions throughout his earlier political career.

Then, he did not want his cause to be allied to, or associated with extreme views which might detract from the Brexit campaign and thereby deter the “moderate centre” from supporting the cause.

But, in seeking to use Reform as the platform to propel him to Number 10, the political landscape has changed, and Farage has not realised that he no longer needs an absolute majority of the votes cast. In order to prosper, he must carve out a distinctive niche, plant his standard and attract supporters to it.

Perhaps reflecting his intellectual limitations, he has been unable to do this. Instead of leading opinion, he charts a safe course on contentious issues, not realising that he needs to be at the centre of the controversies generated by these issues in order to expand his support base.

Pete observes that there was a time circa 2001 when Ukip wouldn’t talk about immigration at all. This was Farage’s doing, but he was forced into a policy reversal when the BNP gained a million votes in the Euro-elections that could have gone to Ukip.

Once again, though, he is trailing opinion rather than leading it, taking the path of least resistance, preferring caution rather than leadership. He will happily bang on about the Dover dinghies, and the effects of mass migration, but will not offer any specific policies, with worked-out details, in case they alienate potential followers.

In a way, he is the model for Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch, who prefers to talk in grandiose terms about creating plans but prefers not to reveal any contents – doubtless on the basis that, once you do, you open yourself up to criticism.

But, while this reactive stance might have served him well in the past – even if the result was a dog’s-dinner Brexit – current and potential Brexit supporters want more than vague aspirations and are looking for hard, bankable policy.

What recent events then reveal is that part of the reason why we have not seen any substantive policy from Farage is that his personal preference is a soft civic nationalism, with an even stronger preference for consensus politics.

His “all are welcome so long as they share our values” schtick suggests he is quite content to accept mass immigration, as long as the incomers are seen to integrate, and government deals with the infrastructure stresses. He is not in the business of challenging the status quo.

This puts him at odds with the hard-liners such as Steve Laws but, as public sentiment against mass immigration crystalises and Jenrick is leading the way, Farage and his party are seriously behind the curve, and seen to be so.

The overall effect of this is that we’re seeing an increasing number of voices who are questioning the very purpose of Reform. Farage’s proud boast, with the demise of the BNP, is that he “drove out” the far-right from politics but that boast in now backfiring on him as the Overton Window shifts and the “far right” moves towards the centre.

And that is what is changing. Throughout my long career in politics, I have lived and worked with the idea of minority party politics, buoyed by the idea that we were fighting for a cause that would eventually prevail – which indeed it did with the success of the EU Referendum.

But, while the need for minority party parties has never been greater, Farage’s inadequacies are contributing to the splintering of the Right and its neutralisation as an effective electoral force.

If, as seems the case, Reform cannot lead – and it shows no sign of doing – then there is no real prospect of any other grouping taking over the mantle. The likes of Jenrick can steal the clothes of the Right and thereby engineer its destruction.

Going way back, the emergence of Ukip gave us hope that we could break the monopoly of what became known as the “uniparty” – the dreadful consensus of Labour and Conservatives which meant that a change in government made no difference to policy.

There lies the issue that matters. Unrecorded by the legacy media – that which would call itself the “mainstream” – we may be seeing the slow death of small party politics.

As Pete observes, even if Reform could arrive at a structured set of policies, it is unlikely that it could exert discipline on its freelancing leader to stick to the agreed script. And he is not going to be around forever, so he will have to be replaced sooner rather than later.

Few believe that Farage’s preferred successor, Zia Yousaf, can reflect the growing demands of the Right – or indeed would be willing to do so – and, in any case, a pale imitation of Farage won’t cut it. With so few assets to choose from, and so remote the chance of getting serious, it’s hard to see a long-term future for the Party, leaving an unfillable void.

From the look of it, we’re stuck with the “uniparty” model for the foreseeable future, without hope and without a safety valve. For however long we have to tolerate it, though, it is an unsustainable situation that cannot last. But we’ve lost the chance of a peaceful transition.