If there were doubts about Reform's political character, ITV's undercover documentary has put them to bed. In encounter after encounter, its reporters were witnesses to unprompted, off-the-cuff racism. But we're not talking about the casual dropping of slurs. Instead, a parade of councillors and party officials outlined their elaborate, violent fantasies. Of ripping people from their homes and shoving them in concentration camps, of personally carrying out public executions, of terrorising minorities and enjoying the experience of discharging imagined race war responsibilities. The expose went beyond how Reform cadre break taboos in private. Rather, what we got was fascist bloodlust, a desire by the men featured to commit mass murder because, for their own pathetic reasons, it makes them feel good.
Damning for Nigel Farage and his satraps was not their endorsement of these views. He would never be so crude. But the fact that, despite pledging to "professionalise" the party on many occasions, Reform is an organisation where these sorts of views were tolerated on a don't ask, don't tell basis. Farage himself was willing to overlook the racist attack made on David Lammy by Chris Parry, the then candidate for the mayoralty of Hampshire and the Solent - presumably because he was a rear admiral. But overall, time and again, unapologetic fascists were shown to have sailed through the "vetting", tips were given by party officials on how to circumvent it, and there was more than one case of those dumb enough not to hide racist social media posts being invited to apply again for a local election vacancy. Farage's pledges to clean up his outfit are a sham.
What does Farage gain from attracting these sorts of people to his organisation? Because he knows these are among his core constituency. Reform supporters wouldn't be that upset by the vote-splitting threat posed by Rupert Lowe's Restore if it were otherwise. What Farage gets is a quid pro quo. They do the hard yards of organising the party, of recruiting candidates and sorting out election campaigns, and ultimately putting up the yes men - and they're nearly all men - who'll do Farage's bidding in the council and mayoral chambers, who'll vote the right way in Holyrood and at the Senedd, and will nod through his enabling bill to eviscerate British democracy if they make it to Number 10. And in return, as Farage and his cronies engorge themselves on the not inconsiderable resources of the state, they'll more or less live out their fascist fantasies. Such is the unsaid pact at the core of Reform - something baldly stated in the video, and understood by both parties to the arrangement.
Unfortunately for Farage and Reform, a future where this could be enacted is becoming increasingly far fetched. The schoolboy racism revelations, which have circulated around Westminster for at least a decade, the dodgy finances and possible criminal wrongdoing, the political setbacks, and a Tory party that has, the establishment have decided, made up lost ground, have worn down Reform's fortunes. And Restore are, again, a menacing presence. Their interventions having arguably cost Reform five council by-election victories in October so far. The polling returns have fallen and while they, for the moment, have settled at around a fifth of the electorate at the time of writing, the possibility of Reform reaching much beyond an increasingly boxed-off core has receded. There is, unfortunately, a market for the poison Farage is peddling, but it is out of step with the mainstream majority. And, as such, it remains a base capable of sustaining a few dozen far right grifters, and for feeding and amplifying fascist street movements. But is that enough for a Farage who, for a short time, felt power was within his reach? Probably not.
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Let us hope you are correct, Phil, in your write-off of the bar room Far Right Tories/neo fascists of Reform. Certainly the MSM suddenly, after a decade or two of this stuff about Farage and his various party initiatives being there in plain site if a wee bit of critical investigation had been done, turning on Farage is to be welcomed. However , what lies ahead politically will very much depend on what lies ahead politically/economically for the UK and Europe . It should be obvious to any eyes open Left Winger by now that Andy Burnham is simply a more superficially more glib and less wooden continuity PM for every policy that Starmer and his warmongering Blairite associates supported, and still do . So there is no appropriate policy bundle to be expected from Labour , any more than the Tories or Lib Dems , or indeed the Greens, when the fast building global energy crisis, and resulting global financial crisis and Slump (of 2008 and even 1929 scale) hits the UK early next year, as a consequence of the ever-widening middle East war.
ReplyDeleteAdd to that profound crisis of oil and gas energy, fertilizer, and other basic Gulf-sourced commodities, like helium and aluminium commodities that global production depends on, the ever greater threat of a military missile strike response into Western Europe/UK from Russia to the ever increasing crazy provocations like the recent drone barrage guided through the Baltic NATO states to attack St Petersburg, and we are facing a quite likely UK (and European) crisis that the current UK main parties will be completely unable to tackle. It is in that quite likely dark near future that the siren voices of the Far Right will pick up support at a quite alarming rate - well beyond the merely neo fascist/bar room Toryism of Farage, or Lowe. This is particularly so with the utter collapse of a mass organised socialist Left to offer serious socialist solutions/policies.
Your belief that most UK citizens are and would be repelled by the divisive, scapegoating racist poison peddled by the Far Right is unfortunately likely to be over optimistic in the midst of the likely profound economic crisis that lies ahead. Desperate people can be very vicious and sectarian when the shit hits the proverbial fan, Phil.