David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.
Attending a Reform UK event last week, Nigel Farage was asked if he had succeeded in winning the support of someone who had previously backed Jeremy Corbyn.
Farage explained the move on the grounds that both he and Corbyn were anti-establishment and Eurosceptic, that Corbyn thought that Brussels was “good for the big banks and the big businesses and bad for everyone else” and that he was “pretty much right about that”.
He drew attention too to a similar phenomenon in the US, where Bernie Sanders supporters had switched to Donald Trump, and commented that the “unfairness of the economic system as currently structured is at the root of it”.
It is hard to imagine any senior Conservative politicians would speak warmly of Corbyn or, indeed, Labour politicians come to that. It is possible that Farage was simply trying to provide an answer that did not put off a new supporter, and he was hardly likely to say that “we attract all sorts of fruitcakes here”.
But the answer more than hinted at an agenda of economic populism that has previously not been at the forefront of Reform’s approach.
There is certainly a political case for Reform moving in that direction, although it is not without risks. As a party, its appeal is to those who think that there is a cultural elite who ignore the concerns of ordinary people on issues like immigration, crime, and Europe. Farage has built a consequential career by articulating those concerns and now leads a party that competes to lead the opinion polls.
At the same time, there are many voters who think that there is an economic elite who also ignore the concerns of ordinary people. Polling suggests that there is plenty of support for this economic populism, but it has not had anything like the same impact in our electoral politics as the cultural populism pursued by Farage.
The question has always been left unanswered as to what would happen if a culturally populist party – like Reform – also pursued a populist approach to economics. Is that about to change?
Populist economics, which involves bashing big business and wealthy individuals, is predominantly a left-wing game. Corbyn was the most unashamedly economic populist to lead a major party in recent years and, as his supporters never cease to remind us, many of his individual economic policies on matters like public ownership polled well.
This was not, however, sufficient to overcome the country’s justified suspicion that he hated the UK and was a threat to national security. A more obviously patriotic and culturally conservative figure might do much better.
A culturally right-wing and economically left-wing party might not sound terribly coherent, but then again most voters’ views are not necessarily all that coherent in terms of being uniformly left-wing or right-wing. In any event, one can draw these positions together by making the same, populist argument that elites are ignoring the views of ordinary people.
One can believe that ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth and support the return of the death penalty. One position might be said to be left-wing, the other right-wing, but many (including the vast majority of Reform voters) will hold both.
From Reform’s perspective, there is a strong case for moving to the left on economic issues because most of the seats they can hope to pick up will be from Labour. Of the 98 constituencies in which Reform finished second at the last election, 89 were won by Labour. With Labour struggling in office, Reform has a very good chance of winning a sizeable number of these seats.
In many cases this might be possible simply by squeezing the Tory vote, but winning over direct switchers from Labour will be important. At the very least, Reform will not want to motivate left-wing voters to turnout to vote against them because of their economic policies.
A difficulty for Farage, however, is that his economics are evidently right of centre. He favours low taxes and deregulation and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Truss/Kwarteng mini-budget, not that he cares to mention it much these days. Even in the general election campaign he could not help himself from questioning the viability of the NHS.
When Farage attacks the “wokery” of large corporates he sounds authentic, but he would not be a plausible advocate for a more redistributive state.
The polling also shows that current Reform voters have complex attitudes to economic questions. YouGov asked a series of questions on political attitudes at the time of the last election.
Reform voters took what could be described as left-wing positions on issues such as whether “rich people in the UK are able to get around the law or get off more easily than poorer people”, “big businesses in the UK take advantage of ordinary people” and “ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth” (incidentally, notably more left-wing than Conservative voters).
But they were right-wing on issues such as whether government should “redistribute income from the better off to those who are less well off” or if “welfare benefits in the UK are too generous”.
These attitudes, plus Farage’s own instincts, suggest that Reform is unlikely to become a straight-forwardly economically left-wing party favouring higher taxes. But a move towards a more populist economic agenda from Reform – with plenty of criticism of big business and the “economic elites” – is more than likely. We might even get some more praise for the anti-establishment attitudes of Corbyn.
This latter point should serve as a warning to those of us who believe that the route to prosperity requires a vibrant private sector and that this is best achieved by creating a pro-business environment.
Farage’s most significant political achievement so far was Brexit, and that certainly is not helping to create that pro-business environment. If he now moves the political debate further in the direction of being hostile to big business, attracting higher levels of business investment will become even harder.
Businesses will invest in countries that have good access to overseas markets, the ability to employ talented people from across the world, strong and stable political institutions, and the rule of law. Populism is a threat to all of those attributes. Even if promises of deregulation and lower business taxes are made, they will ring hollow from a party that will be dependent on voters who are likely to be hostile to these ideas.
This gets to the heart of what right of centre politics should be about. Should it principally be a populist force aiming to give a voice to those angry at establishment elites? In which case, sign up with Farage – but do not be surprised to find yourself at one end of a horseshoe, adjacent to the Right Honourable Member for Islington North.
But if you think that what we need is a centre right that understands markets and business and wants them to thrive, steer a long way clear.