An evening with Reform

There is finally a Great Replacement that we can be happy about: that of the Conservatives being toppled by Reform.

Yet, having been rushed into a general election, most of the party’s prospective MPs have been thrown into the melee without a chance to establish themselves. Therefore, some of these hopeful Tory-topplers hired out a village hall in a forgotten Northamptonshire village in order to introduce themselves to the party’s supporters.

Ever curious, I decided to attend. Going with a relative who was eager to secure a place to sit – we imagined the meeting would be well attended given Reform’s grand rise – we arrived early. However, we needn’t have worried: we were instead greeted by some sausage rolls, bottles of water and a practically empty hall, bar the Reform candidates themselves distinguishable by the rosette’s pinned to their chest.

We waited a while, anticipating a deluge of sound Northamptonshire electors. After all, this, being a county represented by relatively decent Conservative MPs, is fertile ground for an insurgency on the right.

Nevertheless, by kick-off time the five candidates scarcely outnumbered the audience.

The prospective MPs took it in turn to deliver a speech, each on a different area of policy. The first was on Reform’s broad objective and the state of the country at large.

At least, I believe it was: the talk was perhaps the worst political address I have ever heard. Meandering confusedly between points, the orator tried to follow the outline of a speech he had written down. Starting on one topic before fizzling promptly out, he stuttered through half-formed sentences and low mutters of “now, where was I?”

The most highly trained thespians with a gift for comedy and the absurd would struggle to recreate it in its glory, hilarious as it was in its amateurishness. It had the cohesion of a fever dream and, after a few bizarre minutes, it ended, rounded off with a dutiful applause.

“If that’s the opener,” I thought to myself, “it is surely downhill from here.” Yet my fears were, by-and-large, misplaced.

None of the other four candidates speaking could be accused of being polished politicians delivering slick speeches: this is a point they themselves happily concede.

Each candidate spoke for ten minutes on their particular political pet peeve – the NHS, policing, housing, energy. Refreshing was their intimacy with their subjects, with an ex-copper speaking about the decline of Britain’s law and order, a paramedic about the sorry state of the NHS and someone with actual business acumen on the needs of Britain’s economy.

Such types are a far cry from the ‘generalist’ PPE types who have so poisoned the political landscape in recent decades. Knowing just enough about many topics (with a healthy dose of arrogance and undeserved certainty thrown in), they expound damagingly on things about which they know just enough not to sound entirely idiotic.

As such, the Reform candidates are endearing in their authenticity. They legitimately represent the communities which they hope to stand in Parliament for: they are of, not above, the electorate. They are not parachuted in from on high to rule over the unruly natives with whom they have no knowledge nor connection, as we have become accustomed to.

At one point during the evening something approaching a heckle emerged. One audience member (or, therefore, about 20% of the audience) started to ask increasingly bizarre questions and assert esoteric points of view, but only declaring that his wife was ‘ashamed’ that he had decided to attend at all.

These ranged from the loaded “is Nigel Farage linked to the National Front?”, to “we must get rid of Net-Zero, but not the bit that my firm is involved in”, to “what we need in this country is fifteen years of democracy, followed by five years of dictatorship!”.

It was this chap’s odd, intellectually jumbled interjections which made the event worthwhile, however. It was only in this moment of normal, person-to-person dialogue when the candidates started to reveal their strengths – even the chap who delivered England’s worst-ever political speech.

As ordinary people, the candidates are not creatures of the lectern. It is doubtful whether any of them were head boys of prep schools, attended debating societies or interned at JP Morgan – thank God. Their politics were not formed so as to acquire access to the levers of power – an intellectual accessory necessary to get ahead in life. Instead, their views have been moulded by life’s vagaries and forged by decades in difficult professions, serving their communities and their families.  

They are the kind of people who discuss politics with their friends and colleagues, out on a night with their mates or down the pub.

As such, when they finally had the chance to speak man-to-man with this heckler, eschewing the unfamiliar garb of playing politician, they came to life. They were just normal people, countering without fear the manifold modern shibboleths which have so distorted our society.

Instead of curling up into the foetal position when the topic of immigration emerged, as per mainstream standard operating procedure, they calmly asserted that not wanting a bajillion immigrants per year did not instantly render one an awful racist. A willing refusal to kowtow to the mandatory mistruths characterised their general stance.

Whether this authenticity will be enough to remould our politics for good is another question. The real trial will come if and when such individuals are elected to office and the inevitable barrage of slander and vile attempts at character assassination occur. Will they hold their nerve? After all, such weapons are the mainstay of those arrayed against Reform and versus those who want to topple our disastrous elite.

Ultimately, my concern remains that the entire edifice relies still too greatly on the appeal of one man: our Nige. Like many movements that have come before (Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Trump in the USA), the success of the party appears entirely dependant on his character alone. Before his return, Reform appeared a busted flush. One can only imagine how few would have attended this meeting had he not come reemerged on to the scene.

A broader-based, sustainable movement has to be created. It cannot rely upon the strength of personality of one individual alone. After all, what if something happened to our dear Nigel? We’d suddenly be back at square one.

p.s. I managed to fracture both of my wrists a few days ago, as such updates will be slow until I can type without wincing.