Reform seem to be doing spectacularly well and have even gained a parliamentary seat. They have surged past the post in many local elections and even when they fell short, it is often the case that the Labour or Tory incumbent hung on by the skin of their teeth. If nothing else it should be a clear signal that the number of people uneasy about the “tapestry” vision of Britain I wrote about yesterday is growing every day.
A quick aside: the fact that it is unsafe for a Jewish group to participate in Pride shows what a joke and a sham Sadiq Khan’s “tapestry” is.
In fact, I would argue that the Tories were turfed out in large part because they failed to do what people had voted them in to do. They didn’t get a handle on illegal migration, they didn’t challenge increasingly unhinged woke ideas, they didn’t stop disruptive ‘protests’ by the lunatics of Extinction Rebellion and its various rebrands, of the cranks marching for Hamas, and so on, despite – on several occasions – their best efforts to do so.
I don’t blame them. It seems increasingly obvious that our multifarious “operationally independent” state institutions simply say “no” to government directions, so we have found ourselves governed by an unelected, faceless, and seemingly untouchable elite who ‘know better’ that you or I about what the world should look like and be like. And then of course there are the unions who ‘go slow’ anything they don’t like, and sometimes literally ‘strike’ it down. So the politicians are impotent.
But if politicians are impotent, then voters are impotent too. But most don’t realise it.
And this is going to be Reform’s biggest problem, if not their undoing.
Given the mood of the country as it currently is, if Reform had gone into a general election yesterday, there is a fair chance Nigel Farage would be in Downing Street today. But instead, Reform have gained control of city councils. The people who gave them that control – the local voters – will now be expecting ‘change’.
What change? Well, they will expect to an end to migrant hostels down the road, and hope their police address rising crime in their high streets instead of racing to investigate “non-crime hate incidents”. That’s the headline stuff. There’s also the day-to-day stuff like filling in potholes and making sure the rubbish is collected.
I don’t rate their chances of pulling this off. I think the local police will carry on doing what they do. I think the Labour government will double-down on keeping migrant hotels in these areas simply to prove that voting Reform can’t divert us from the progressive tack we’re on. I expect the unions will find a myriad of grievances in Reform-led areas to cripple local services. By the time the general election comes around, people will have concluded that all politicians are rotten and none of them can deliver anything.
Anyone holding that position is generally at least half right.
I think the frustration that comes with impotence will lead to infighting and recriminations. Things will fall apart. To make matters worse, they have not been able to attract the quality of candidates and leadership who will be able to navigate this. And voters? They will conclude that once again they did not get what they voted for.
I’m not sure where that leaves us.
Photo credit: UK Parliament official portrait.
