Reform UK: Proportion and Resistance

 Well, some people around the world are glad to see the recent electoral success of Reform UK. Vladimir Putin, seen above, must have been greatly encouraged to learn that newly-elected Reform UK councils are stopping the flying of Ukrainian flags on council buildings. As their chairman, Zia Yusuf, said, quoted in the Guardian:

“Reform-controlled English councils will move at speed to resolve that the only flags permitted to be flown on or in its buildings will be the union jack and St George’s flag,” he said on X".

There is nothing new in sympathetic nods in the direction of the Kremlin by Reform UK, of course. Back in 2014, Nigel Farage named Putin as the world leader he most admired. Since then, as Searchlight magazine has said:

"Farage has repeatedly echoed Kremlin talking points. Most notably, he argued that NATO and EU expansion “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a claim strongly condemned across the political spectrum".

Of course, gloating behind the walls of FSB headquarters in Moscow is trivial compared to the celebrations of Reform UK here, be it by elected representatives or grass roots supporters. Farage's deputy, Richard Tice, boasted to Politics Home: 

“This is a seismic shift in British politics. Millions of people have hope again. People have voted with their feet for Reform in huge numbers. The old tired uni party of Labour and Tory is in terminal decline. We are just warming up," Reform deputy leader Richard Tice told PoliticsHome."

While the obnoxious Tice's boasting can be taken with a lot of salt, another leading member, Gawain Towler, said:

“It’s not a protest vote – it’s a voice"...Towler said it was “incredible” Reform came as close as it did in the North Tyneside and West of England mayoralties. “We spent no money in North Tyneside at all, and did no campaigning whatsoever".

There's nothing new in far Right and "new" parties proclaiming their arrival on the political/electoral scene. We have seen it before with the National Front, Respect and the BNP. The difference this time , however, is that Reform UK have actually gained significant electoral success. Without detailing the actual, admittedly depressing figures, it is undeniable that Reform UK now appears to be a political force to be reckoned with. Those of us who oppose Reform UK should perhaps be feeling intimidated.

Or perhaps not...

Reform UK have made a lot of sweeping claims about what they intend to do about Local Authority financial waste. Yet, as Tony Travers, professor of public policy at the London School of Economics said recently on the BBC Today radio programme, there have already been been 15 years of cuts to local council budgets. Professor Travers warned it would be extremely difficult to find substantial savings in this part of the public sector.

Like the National Front and the BNP, Reform UK have railed against immigration - illegal immigration. They say that they have no problem with legal migrants and are not a racist party. Their party chairman is a Muslim and they claim to have ethnic minority members. It would be a mistake to be taken in by this; the BNP had token Sikh members who appeared on BNP election broadcasts. According to Farage, Reform UK has a robust vetting system for weeding out extremists who seek to stand as electoral candidates. But, as the BBC says:

 "Hope Not Hate, an anti-racism campaign group which has clashed with Farage in the past, said the examples it had found undermined his vetting claims. On Thursday last week, the group published details of social media posts it had found from 14 different current Reform UK candidates."

And those posts are very interesting. This is what some of those candidates had to say:

1.A Reform UK candidate saying "one big nuke bomb" should be used to remove Islam from the world
2. Another saying Bradford has a large Muslim population and is a "shithole"
3. Others promoting the conspiracy theory that Muslims are seeking to "supplant the native population" in the UK

And then there was the interesting claim by Andrea Jenkyns, Reform UK's mayor for Greater Lincolnshire, who said, in her victory speech: 

"I say no to putting people in hotels. Tents are good enough for France, they should be good enough for here in Britain."

This simplistic (simple-minded?) "solution" to the problem of migrant accommodation would create more problems that it set out to solve. Tented settlements require support networks, such as water, power and medical facilities. They provide ready targets for racist attacks, as has happened in Dublin. And there would undoubtedly be local resentment and hostility towards such settlements. Ms Jenkyns has thrown a juicy bone to the xenophobic sentiments of many Reform UK voters, but she has clearly not thought carefully about what she has said.

It's my personal belief that Reform UK is a Trojan horse for the extreme Right. Besides the examples given by Hope not Hate, the leader of the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative, Mark Collett, has advocated infiltrating "clean skins" into Reform UK in order to move it further to the Right. This was previously noted by Hope not Hate during the General Election campaign, commenting:

"The most telling endorsement so far has come from Patriotic Alternative’s beleaguered leader, Mark Collett. While maintaining that Farage is “controlled opposition”, Collett seems excited that Farage looks set, “to genuinely challenge and possibly destroy the Conservative Party at this election and they are doing so by running with genuine nationalist policies".

Collett, and others further to the Right than Farage or Tice, will be even more excited now. 

To close, it's clear that we need to keep a sense of proportion about Reform UK's success. They may have won some councils, but can they deliver on their promises? However, they are carrying within their ranks a more sinsiter threat, which we must monitor and resist.