Farage. Reform. Moi.

Considering Reform?

Hail and welcome to another week in the Word Emporium. These past few weeks have been making me feel like I am under an artillery barrage of news and events. It is hardly possible for me process the streams, torrents and tsunamis of commentary and explanations from each and every angle from across the anglo-sphere!

I have been continually concerned with the repeated rapes of girls in Britain (more this week) and the failures of our police to prevent or deal with it: from now it seems like a concrete policy of fear? Not fear for our girls safety. Fear of the perpetrators and our outrage, which is simmering. With the monumental charge and surge of energy that President Trump is pursuing in the United States and the resultant opposition that has led to the Executive and Judicial branches of government engaging in what looks to me remarkably like a Punch and Judy show. The wrangling as of yet to be resolved in that arena so watch this space.

With Ex-President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines being extradited to the Hague to answer charges in the ICC that has led to Jean and I discussing some issues related to that. Incidentally I have watched once and once only a State of the Union Address In the Philippines live on TV. It was one of Duterte addresses. I admit, I enjoyed it.

In Britain we have a third political Party that is doing well it seems at the moment. It is euphemistically called the Reform Party. It too is in the news this past week for negative reasons: one of its (five) MPs has been removed from the party in a quite public spat about policy direction and language and behaviour and what not. As I have no stake in the party or in either of the protagonists in this Parliamentary spat: I have very little interest in following the details.

Though despite myself I have read Rupert Lowe’s letter to Nigel Farage and various SubStack authors have been prolific this past week talking about it. For example I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s take on it (as Im a subscriber to that thought provoking author) and also the statistician Matt Goodwin. Also because I am a podcast listener (Spiked, New Culture Forum, Triggernometry amongst many. They have been discussing these issues so I mention them here). The discourse about it is has been unavoidable as I pop in my iPods and listen as I take my evening constitutional.

So perhaps I am more interested than I like to admit to myself? That is the point id like to examine.

You see I am really fundamentally interested in a potential political party that will destroy the strangle hold of the Tory party and the Labour party that we have had now dominate our Parliament for over a Century in Britain. For I am in fact politically homeless it seems. I cannot vote for Labour with its fundamental ideas of identity and power structures as the determinant factors behind shaping and executing policies, laws, housing, justice, immigration.

I am exhausted by the so called Conservative party which has no interest whatsoever in the conservation of our national identities and culture and institutions that have been handed down to us through centuries of trial and error. A most British political attitude. They are in fact a liberal mess and morass. Most of our Institutions, including Parliament, are gutted. Unelected Quangos seem to make policy for MPs to rubber stamp. The Civil Service is not impartial, it is clearly a force itself in the Body Politic. Who will operate to remove this cancer and foster healing alternatives or at least reset to impartiality?

I posted a Note on SubStack this week. I said:

I never considered myself conservative politically. It is just that I like Edmund Burke.

I cannot abide the liberal democrats (party) because twice in my life time they have hopped into bed with one of the bigger parties to share power. I am not against coalitions per se. At least be clear about your ideology and philosophy first. It would determine the quality of a coalition. Not, say, for expediency or for the experience in sharing in power. (Labour back in 1978-9 and the Conservatives in 2010). They are like a Hooker looking for the most likely trick. Or looking for customers on the imaginary political version of Only Fans: ‘ ‘We are also up for a 100 Toms, Dicks or Harrys’ ”: should be there motto and most apt for this current Only Fans rage that is just another aspect of degeneracy and distraction from life itself. David Cameron shafted them good and proper in 2015. Their Liberal Democrat Leader losing his seat but gaining a job at Facebook. Apt.

I remember the UKIP party in the late 1980s and 1990s. Robert Killroy Silk getting himself into trouble for daring to question immigration. Then arose our Nigel. Mr Nigel Farage took the mantle of the UKIP party and slowly made that protest party against the European Union and Britain’s membership thereof, his idee fixe.

I distinctly remember that awful plane crash that nearly cost him his life at an election time. His repeated failures to actually get elected to our Westminster Parliament but conversely, ironically, the Great British public voted for him and his party to represent them in the European Parliament! In which place he cultivated the persona of being a right royal pain in the arse to pro Europeans like Tony Blair for example.

My thoughts about it at the time were that this was just a one trick pony. No harm in that. I am all for political choices. For protest voting on occasions. Yet I recall thinking this was not for me. Other than the European Union: what exactly did UKIP stand for? I was never sure. Perhaps I should have enquired more. In my mind they were just tories with an EU fetish. An EU voodoo doll and their own UKIP branded pins…..

Then came the Brexit vote in 2016. Once that result was known (Britain leaving the E.U) it was obvious to me that Nigel would probably go back to business or whatever. Job done?

I did not actually vote in the 2016 Referendum. I could not make my mind up. Neither side were persuasive. I found that Remain were to often to be prophets of Doom and not endearing as a result. Nuance was missing. I found the Leave campaign to be like candy floss; all sweetly and sickly but unappetising. I am hard to persuade because I am politically homeless. If I had voted I would more likely gone for Remain as it happens. That changed drastically in the weeks afterwards.

I just got back to the UK in late June 2016. The news media in Britain was was febrile! Remain made two fatal mistakes in those weeks after. Firstly they disparaged the voters as uneducated, stupid, elderly and white. Secondly, they categorised them as racists. At that, they lost me. For me the race card is already maxed out. Where there is genuine racism lets weed it out and discuss it in the light of day and expose it. Voting for Brexit ain’t it!

Nigel however could not hang up his laurels. Not quite. For significant parts of both of the major parties were and still are, against Brexit. Parliament became a circus. The most ashamed of it I have ever been. So Nigel in 2019 had an answer for our domestic politics: the Brexit Party. It stood in 2019 and looked like gaining some seats. On the other hand Labour who were vehemently against Brexit and might have won an election if Nigel Farage had not caved to Big Boris Johnson’s promises: if Brexit party would step aside and not split pro Brexit votes on behalf of the Tories. They were more likely after all to win actual seats.

So Nigel caved in. We got Boris due to Nigel Farage. I remember that coming as yet another surprise to me. I expected his party to see it through on principle. They were unequivocally the Brexit party. Yet Nigel gave way. The Brexit party faded almost over night with just a core left.

This core rebranded itself the Reform Party. All through the Pandemic years and afterwards Richard Tice and a few stalwart believers campaigned for the Reform party in a constituency not far from mine (Hartlepool). I had no idea that in fact, our Nigel was a shareholder as it were. Whilst he spent the next few years on GB news and doing his stuff the Reform party slogged away at building membership etc.

So last year in 2024 General Election the Reform party looked good in the polls and were expected to probably get a seat or two. Richard Tice managed to persuade the Totem ( for that is now what Nigel Farage has become in my opinion) to stand at the last moment. I was surprised once again! I actually thought Reform’s future was to do without their Totem. To build, and build, and use Nigel as a cudgel on occasions. A reminder of the good old days!

He is back. Elected for the first time to Parliament. The Reform party is now on the map. For me this past week has raised the inevitable question in my mind; what is their philosophy? What are their political principles? This spat between Totemic Farage and Mr Lowe has made me curious. It is time to look into them more.

Last year I read the Party manifestos in the run up to the General Election. I reported to my subscribers here on SubStack. Actually that I was singularly unimpressed and in fact worried by Labours manifesto. The Tories contribution was a brick with a parachute over the River Thames: outcome assured.

I only read Reforms manifesto in a cursory way and did write about what I found as I was not expecting much and besides they were still just Tory Lite it seemed to me. So, now that this spat has made me curious….lets take a look…..

Thanks for bearing with me! I think I will write again soon about Reform and policies. If any.

Blessed be and have a good week looking at the unfurling joys of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the mellow golds of Autumn colours in the Southern Hemisphere!

Probably a lot healthier pastime than bru ha ha of politics!

Yours,

Syre Byrd