Manraj Atwal is a History undergraduate at UCL and the incoming President of its Conservative Society.
As the pundits and the pollsters dole out their ceaseless projections of Reform’s rise, and the party leaders scramble to react, it seems the future is already settled; with only the size and composition of a future Reform government left to be decided.
On the right, the question is how to imitate it. On the left there is a general assumption that Reform will triumph; particularly once Burnham’s government is now facing the scrutiny of Parliament and the pain of yet another tax raising budget in the Autumn.
And why shouldn’t it be inevitable! After all, until only very recently Reform had been leading in the polls and still averages a solid 20-25 percent of the vote. After all, Farage remains the most effective communicator British politics has produced in a generation, capable of setting the terms of any news cycle. After all, in May Reform did sweep to victory across thousands of council seats. Surely, they are simply and utterly inevitable.
Of course, it’s easier not to question things too deeply. The inevitable doesn’t ask anything of you. It doesn’t require you to come up with new news stories. Even for those who positively detest Reform, it’s comforting to know that the fight is already lost, so there’s nothing left for you to do but take solace in the odd biting comment here and impotent growling at Zia Yusuf’s Twitter there. Tomorrow belongs to them after all, so at least you’ll know you were right when it comes.
And yet, it doesn’t add up.
For a movement carrying all before it, Reform’s electoral coalition looks extraordinarily narrow; concentrated disproportionately amongst those 65+, scoring a meagre 8 per cent with those aged 18-24. Its policy platform too reflects this fact, with a programme ranging from the macabre, such as promising a seemingly eternal continuation of the triple lock, to the absurd; promising to cart the Royal Navy out into the channel to ‘deter’ migrants. All of this, so assiduously catered to that narrow base, with little offer made to anyone beyond it.
Farage himself, despite leading the insurgency seemingly poised to break British politics apart, is one of the longest continuously active politicians in the country, a career now running back to the UKIP of the early 1990s, through Brexit, to Reform today. And in over three decades he has, in substance, only ever played one tune.
In 2015 he was promising to get immigration numbers back to what he called “normality” through an Australian-style points system. A decade later, the pledge has simply escalated in register rather than changed in kind: mass deportations, withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, the same underlying demand delivered with considerably sharper teeth. The vehicle has been rebranded three times. The driver, and the destination, have not moved at all.
So, what is the issue? None of this changes the fundamentals. Reform is ahead, still poised to seize the reins of government; still the rising, as opposed to the setting, sun.
But the colossus of Reform, however much it may loom over the political arena, has feet of clay. Babylon too must have seemed inevitable, rising with golden head and bronze legs to reach the sky and yet, like Reform now, vulnerable at its own foundations. For Reform, a coalition built this heavily on the over-65s is not a coalition with time on its side. It is, bluntly, ageing out in real time, losing voters to mortality. That is not a hypothetical weakness to be managed one day. It is happening now, this parliament, this year.
Nor is this a problem exclusive to Reform. In 1929, Lloyd George’s Liberals, buoyed by an exhausted Conservative government and a Labour Party still untrusted by large swathes of the country, won 5.3 million votes, 23.6 percent of the vote; seeming poised to tear the Westminster duopoly apart at the seams. And then, nothing. No realignment, no new politics, nothing. The coalition that delivered those numbers was built almost entirely from nonconformist workers and the Celtic fringe, a coalition that could win an election but could not grow, because it had nowhere left to expand into. It aged, it shrank, and by the 1930s it was irrelevant.
Reform, in all fairness, is not doomed to some prescribed political destiny. The Conservative Party itself has long rested on an older base, before bridging out, at its most successful, to those of differing ages and differing backgrounds. However, looking at Reform and especially their principal figures, it’s not clear they are willing, or even able, to broaden out their existing coalition.
Squeezed from its own right by Restore, the party is arguably unable to pivot towards younger voters without bleeding out the core base that has fuelled so much of its existing rise. But even if it were able to pivot, with figures such as Zia Yusuf branding a former Conservative Defence Secretary and serving soldier “a traitor“, and the suspension of internal party debate extending even to eminence grises such as Tim Montgomerie, the party is clearly unwilling to do so.
And then there is Farage himself. As stated, before he is a fine communicator, a brilliant disruptor but politician he is not. Despite an attempt to make Reform seem like a party of government, he has reverted to type. Faced with scrutiny, he has retreated back to Clacton; more comfortable preaching to the faithful than converting the unbelievers. In short even though Reform could broaden out, it hasn’t and on this track it won’t.
So where does that leave us? The truth is that nothing in politics is inevitable. Nothing in politics is ever really settled. In the next few years, there must be a fight; a fight for the future of the country, and for Conservatives, a fight for ownership of the political right. The commentariat can rest on their laurels.
The resigned can stay resigned. Reform is not the future. They can’t be. Not unless everyone else keeps agreeing not to contest it.
Manraj Atwal is a History undergraduate at UCL and the incoming President of its Conservative Society.
As the pundits and the pollsters dole out their ceaseless projections of Reform’s rise, and the party leaders scramble to react, it seems the future is already settled; with only the size and composition of a future Reform government left to be decided.
On the right, the question is how to imitate it. On the left there is a general assumption that Reform will triumph; particularly once Burnham’s government is now facing the scrutiny of Parliament and the pain of yet another tax raising budget in the Autumn.
And why shouldn’t it be inevitable! After all, until only very recently Reform had been leading in the polls and still averages a solid 20-25 percent of the vote. After all, Farage remains the most effective communicator British politics has produced in a generation, capable of setting the terms of any news cycle. After all, in May Reform did sweep to victory across thousands of council seats. Surely, they are simply and utterly inevitable.
Of course, it’s easier not to question things too deeply. The inevitable doesn’t ask anything of you. It doesn’t require you to come up with new news stories. Even for those who positively detest Reform, it’s comforting to know that the fight is already lost, so there’s nothing left for you to do but take solace in the odd biting comment here and impotent growling at Zia Yusuf’s Twitter there. Tomorrow belongs to them after all, so at least you’ll know you were right when it comes.
And yet, it doesn’t add up.
For a movement carrying all before it, Reform’s electoral coalition looks extraordinarily narrow; concentrated disproportionately amongst those 65+, scoring a meagre 8 per cent with those aged 18-24. Its policy platform too reflects this fact, with a programme ranging from the macabre, such as promising a seemingly eternal continuation of the triple lock, to the absurd; promising to cart the Royal Navy out into the channel to ‘deter’ migrants. All of this, so assiduously catered to that narrow base, with little offer made to anyone beyond it.
Farage himself, despite leading the insurgency seemingly poised to break British politics apart, is one of the longest continuously active politicians in the country, a career now running back to the UKIP of the early 1990s, through Brexit, to Reform today. And in over three decades he has, in substance, only ever played one tune.
In 2015 he was promising to get immigration numbers back to what he called “normality” through an Australian-style points system. A decade later, the pledge has simply escalated in register rather than changed in kind: mass deportations, withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, the same underlying demand delivered with considerably sharper teeth. The vehicle has been rebranded three times. The driver, and the destination, have not moved at all.
So, what is the issue? None of this changes the fundamentals. Reform is ahead, still poised to seize the reins of government; still the rising, as opposed to the setting, sun.
But the colossus of Reform, however much it may loom over the political arena, has feet of clay. Babylon too must have seemed inevitable, rising with golden head and bronze legs to reach the sky and yet, like Reform now, vulnerable at its own foundations. For Reform, a coalition built this heavily on the over-65s is not a coalition with time on its side. It is, bluntly, ageing out in real time, losing voters to mortality. That is not a hypothetical weakness to be managed one day. It is happening now, this parliament, this year.
Nor is this a problem exclusive to Reform. In 1929, Lloyd George’s Liberals, buoyed by an exhausted Conservative government and a Labour Party still untrusted by large swathes of the country, won 5.3 million votes, 23.6 percent of the vote; seeming poised to tear the Westminster duopoly apart at the seams. And then, nothing. No realignment, no new politics, nothing. The coalition that delivered those numbers was built almost entirely from nonconformist workers and the Celtic fringe, a coalition that could win an election but could not grow, because it had nowhere left to expand into. It aged, it shrank, and by the 1930s it was irrelevant.
Reform, in all fairness, is not doomed to some prescribed political destiny. The Conservative Party itself has long rested on an older base, before bridging out, at its most successful, to those of differing ages and differing backgrounds. However, looking at Reform and especially their principal figures, it’s not clear they are willing, or even able, to broaden out their existing coalition.
Squeezed from its own right by Restore, the party is arguably unable to pivot towards younger voters without bleeding out the core base that has fuelled so much of its existing rise. But even if it were able to pivot, with figures such as Zia Yusuf branding a former Conservative Defence Secretary and serving soldier “a traitor“, and the suspension of internal party debate extending even to eminence grises such as Tim Montgomerie, the party is clearly unwilling to do so.
And then there is Farage himself. As stated, before he is a fine communicator, a brilliant disruptor but politician he is not. Despite an attempt to make Reform seem like a party of government, he has reverted to type. Faced with scrutiny, he has retreated back to Clacton; more comfortable preaching to the faithful than converting the unbelievers. In short even though Reform could broaden out, it hasn’t and on this track it won’t.
So where does that leave us? The truth is that nothing in politics is inevitable. Nothing in politics is ever really settled. In the next few years, there must be a fight; a fight for the future of the country, and for Conservatives, a fight for ownership of the political right. The commentariat can rest on their laurels.
The resigned can stay resigned. Reform is not the future. They can’t be. Not unless everyone else keeps agreeing not to contest it.