For Farage and Reform, Musk’s attack is sunlight, the best disinfectant. It clarifies the divide: Reform as a broad church for disillusioned patriots, not a niche for extremists.
– Gawain Towler (£)
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Samizdata quote of the day – Reform: a broad church for disillusioned patriotsAugust 28th, 2025 |
 26 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Reform: a broad church for disillusioned patriotsLeave a Reply |
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I admire Musk the spacefaring entrepreneur (another big rocket blasted off the other day); I have mixed views about his auto business ventures (Tesla). DOGE had good ideas but some of the execution was poor, in my view, and discredited cuts in a way that might come back to bite. (That there is a need for root-and-branch reform/cuts to the state apparatus is not in doubt.) He did the right thing, as the author of the OP said, in flagging the rape gangs issue. He irritates a lot of the people I want to see irritated. His purchase of Twitter helped the “vibe shift” against the quasi-Marxist dross that seemed to have spread like a wildfire before and during the pandemic. On balance, he’s one of the good guys.
I not an uncritical admirer of Farage, and I am sure the more purist-inclined out there can find reasons to have a go at him. But he is (and I hate to break it to a few people) a political animal of the first rank. Unlike our clanking figure of prime minister, Farage knows how to talk to people. His outline of how a Reform UK government would deport illegals and tighten the system had the merit, which I commend him for, of having a degree of detail. He’s said far more on what could and should be done than most other politicians have for many months. Compare and contrast with the Tories on this.
Sure, there are elements of Reform UK under NF that I worry about, such as how at times he is trying too hard to appeal to Labour voters with stuff about steel nationalisation, etc, although this is not really socialism as a sort of “state capitalism” (think of what Trump has done with Intel, for example). I’d like to see a principled, detailed assault on the Labour side on inheritance taxes, and other taxation of property that appears to be threatened. (If the Tories had a decent set of MPs, they’d have been doing this, but they appear to be useless.)
There have been internal bust-ups and the break with Rupert Lowe and a few others suggests Farage is not an easy man to work with. Over time I will want to see if RUK can evolve into something more coherent.
From where I sit I worry about whether those who want to see limited government, open market economies, respect for liberty and property have a political home of any sort. At the moment it is a mishmash of choices. None of the parties are good on all of these things: Labour is terrible; the Conservatives are mixed (as I said the other day, they started a lot of the current troubles); the Liberal Democrats are a joke, and Reform UK has a few good tunes, but one or two duff notes.
I think putting too much faith in a political force is a mug’s game at this point. Ground-up activism, trying to spread ideas and getting on with whatever projects in private life is as much as many of us can do. Emigration is not an easy option for many, and there are plenty of troubles in other, supposedly nicer parts of the world.
Back to the original post – I think Farage has his flaws, but I see no other major political figure in the UK today who has his ability to make the weather. No one else comes close. It is, when you think about it, quite remarkable how he has done it.
Or maybe Musk is is trying to stiffen the sinews by demonstrating that alternatives do exist?
…and there are any number of people who dislike Farage and will grasp at any straw to discredit him. Perhaps they hate him for inspiring the Brexit Referendum. Perhaps that hate him for not being a compliant Establishment politician. But – at the moment – Reform appears to be the only party likely to ‘win bigly’ against stultified machine politics. I suspect the anti-Farage clatter will increase as we get closer to a General Election; passengers fear the slowing of the gravy train.
No, he’s just a fool who doesn’t understand how UK political dynamics are shifting because he thinks X is the real world, which it ain’t.
But he is (and I hate to break it to a few people) a political animal of the first rank. Unlike our clanking figure of prime minister, Farage knows how to talk to people.
Starmer is also a political animal of the first rank, just of a different kind. He’s a hard core Leninist pretending to be a bumbling nobody. And for those who aren’t paying attention, he does it pretty well.
I think putting too much faith in a political force is a mug’s game at this point.
At any point. Put not your trust in princes.
Starmer is also a political animal of the first rank, just of a different kind. He’s a hard core Leninist pretending to be a bumbling nobody. And for those who aren’t paying attention, he does it pretty well.
Assuming he is trying to fool us, is that working out, though? I would not think so. If he goes ahead and nationalises our front lawns, surrenders more to the EU, etc, continues to censor opinions and immiserates the nation, he is going to be probably out of power years before this parliamentary term is out.
Allister Heath today reckons he could be forced to hold an election as soon as 2027. Now, depending on the crazy maths of UK politics, that might see a motley Lab-Lib Dem-Green-Jezbollah sort of coalition cling to power, or not. But I don’t see that a “hard core Leninist” can be happy at how terrible Labour’s opinion poll ratings are. Young people have been given an object lesson in socialism.
Starmer is not just seen as a “bumbling nobody”. He is despised. And so are his colleagues (Rachel from Accounts, “Red Ed” Milliband; Angela Rayner and the idiot David Lammy). It is just fucking awful. Starmer cannot connect with the Average Joe. He is sanctimonious, while also being seen as dishonest.
To be a “bumbling nobody” is mild compared with what a lot of folk say about him.
@Johnathan Pearce
I’m a Musk fanboy so I’m going to challenge you on this. I do think he has a big mouth and says really dumb things sometimes, but in terms of his contributions to humanity I think he is remarkable. As I have said I think he is the most important human alive today, though, TBH, I think Trump may be a challenger for that title. Which doesn’t mean I like either man personally. I think people that operate at that level are really in another universe and find it hard to relate to normal people like me.
However, yeah, SpaceX is totally remarkable, combined especially with Starlink. It is not only technologically brilliant, it is also economically brilliant in ways I’ll go into if you are interested. FWIW, I think engineers like me often underestimate the power of economic or business innovation. For example, I think one of Bezos’ two greatest innovations was the invention of Prime Membership. It was this, combined with their spectacular logistics and eventually Andy Jassy’s AWS project, that made Amazon the most powerful retailer in the world. Prime membership means, much against my will, that my view is “if I can buy it on Amazon, I will buy it on Amazon.”
As regards to Tesla, I understand there is a strong dislike of EVs here because of their association with the Green New Deal and so forth, but they are remarkable engineering machines. They utterly transformed car design and manufacturing and have completely transformed the automobile industry. Not just with their drive trains but with all of the other massive innovation in cameras and lidar, computerization, mapping and a thousand other things. And a small thing — they have whimsy, something that the suits at Ford would never think of. Regardless of your politics on green-ness, they are one of the greatest triumphs of engineering in the past fifty years. And, as I have said before, I think EVs are the future of local transportation, not because I want to save the planet, but they are just smarter that ICEs. I’m sure most people will disagree with this latter conclusion, but no honest person can question the remarkable engineering achievements, and the paradigm shifting nature of Tesla.
As to Doge, I think he did an amazing job but was utterly stymied by the fecklessness and pathetic-ness of the Republican party. I mean I could have done without the toddler tantrum afterward, but he exposed some of the most shocking abuses of the federal government, and the utterly contemptable way the government treats taxpayer money. And he made some important changes including mostly getting rid of the horrendous USAID and actually forcing the treasury to meet the very most basic standards of bookkeeping. So, not as successful as other things but not due to lack of a herculean effort.
And that is just his major projects. You didn’t mention Boring or the work he is doing with Brain implants. These are not thing to bear short term results but can be absolutely transformative in society.
And of course Twitter — where he saved free speech for the world, and, some might argue got Trump elected (and, an equally laudable achievement, prevented Cackling Kamala from getting elected.) That one thing alone deserves statutes of him in every town square in the western world.
And related to that also is Grok providing some principled competition to the rather shady offerings from OpenAI and Facebook. (BTW, the engineering in Grok is ridiculously good. His ability to build the biggest most powerful data centers in the world in what seems like ten minutes is simply unsurpassed by anyone else.)
So, I think to call him one of the “good guys” is to grossly understate the case. He is one of the most important humans in the past century, and we, our children and grand children will have much better lives because of what he has done. I would describe him as the Isaac Newton of Engineering, in fact of all historical figures Newton is the one he reminds me of the most. And he isn’t done yet.
Fraser:
I’m a Musk fanboy so I’m going to challenge you on this. I do think he has a big mouth and says really dumb things sometimes, but in terms of his contributions to humanity I think he is remarkable.
I don’t dissent from the point about his contributions to humanity. I do think there are question marks about Tesla, and I was not sold on the idea that DOGE was the same as a radical re-sizing of government. Some foolishness was cut out, and that’s good, but it was a bit of a mixed bag. The way the USAID cuts were communicated ignored the value of US “soft power”. What could have been done better in my view is for the administration to show how it can better project American policies overseas, including how it helps countries in trouble and certain causes. Unfortunately, it did not do so.
I praise Musk for calling protectionism stupid, and singling out the absurd P. Navarro on that as “dumb as a bag of rocks”.
I think Musk’s purchase of Twitter and his spacefaring are both great, and he is great, but I demur from the fanboy stance.
Time will tell if Musk’s getting Trump elected is a great thing. I wonder what Musk makes of Mr Trump’s desire to send the national guard to US cities for law enforcement, but I have no idea what EM makes of the US Constitution.
I recently watched a Conservative Party spokesman on GB News being asked about the proposal to make “Islamophobia” a “crime”.
Of course we oppose Islamophobia he said – and then went on to quibble about the government’s definition of this term.
And Mr Farage (who was chairing the discussion on his programme) did the same thing – accept the principle (that opposition to Islam is a “phobia”) and just quibble about details.
And being in opposition is a thousand times easier than being in office.
In office the entire weight of the bureaucracy is on you – you are like a fly in a spider’s web.
If you can not be “extreme” in opposition, there is no chance you will be “extreme” in office.
And it will not “just” be about Islam – it will be about government spending and everything else.
Still I could be mistaken – so if (IF) at the next General Election the Reform Party is the one most likely to defeat the left and I am still about (very unlikely – I certainly do NOT want to be alive in 2029) then I will vote for them.
On book keeping – Illinois has just released its accounts for the fiscal year ending June 30th.
However, it was for for fiscal year ending June 30th – 2023.
If money can just be created from nothing and dished out to corporations, and to governments (via lending – lending from institutions that do NOT really deal in Real Savings – they deal in government backed Credit Bubbles) then massive waste and wild government spending is to be expected.
But then opposing the institutionally corrupt monetary and financial system is also “extreme”.
Everything worthwhile is “extreme”.
Fraser:
I should think that Musk was stymied by the short time of his engagement with the DOGE enterprise.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing, considering that he can probably do more good in other areas, after getting DOGE started.
But, yeah, the tantrum was not only unnecessary, it also showed that Musk has little appreciation of the Machiavellian nature of politics.
Granted, he has had precious little time to think about it; but he ought to be aware of this limitation.
Wait, what — Musk got Trump elected?!
@Johnathan Pearce
and I was not sold on the idea that DOGE was the same as a radical re-sizing of government
I think if there is any hope of saving the west from financial collapse there will not be one single fix, rather it will have to be a multipronged approach. DOGE was surely just one such thing. Originally there seemed to be realistic opportunities to cut up to a trillion dollars from the federal budget. Now, laughably, a trillion dollars isn’t all that much when it comes to the federal budget, but it could have cut the deficit in half. The plans were realistic if aggressive, but of course what Thatcher used to call “the wets” sunk it. And of course Trump himself didn’t help much. I am still flabbergasted that they actually increased defense spending nearly 20% when the United States isn’t in any war for the first time in forty years.
The truth is that Trump, much as I think he is part of the solution, is not at all by nature a cost cutter. And his business is all about debt leverage, so I’m not sure he is quite so concerned about over spending as I’d like him to be. But that is where DOGE was supposed to fill the gap.
A combination of cutting the deficit by a half and sale of those immigration gold cards, plus, much as I dislike them, tariffs, could have balanced the budget. But when the people playing on your team are really rooting for the opposition then you’re going to have a hard time scoring a goal.
The way the USAID cuts were communicated ignored the value of US “soft power”. What could have been done better in my view is for the administration to show how it can better project American policies overseas
See this is where you and I are going to disagree. I don’t think the USA should be using “soft power” to influence foreign governments, in fact I think it is verging on the immoral. Interfering in other countries almost always backfires. USAID was a horrible organization, and I am disappointed that some of its carcass still breathes life under the auspices of the state department. Friendship and commerce with all, entangling alliances with none (or come to that surreptitious, mendacious influence). Again Trump doesn’t really believe that. But at least when he is interfering in other governments he is doing it either to stop wars or to provide some sort of advantage to Americans.
@Budge Hinman
Wait, what — Musk got Trump elected?!
I’m not saying absolutely that that is true, but he certainly played his part — specifically through the liberation of twitter and the restoration of free speech in America. Margins are pretty tight in American politics and that is surely enough to have made a difference.
There were a lot of people who helped Trump get elected. One person who is pretty underrated is Charlie Kirk. He is a bit too religiousy for my liking, but there is no doubt that that man has dramatically changed the political landscape in the United States for the better. And it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of non Americans, even politically savvy ones, didn’t even know who he is.
FWIW, I apologize for dragging this discussion from British politics to American. Back to the OP, FWIW, I think Musk is wrong. I actually think that Farage is the last hope for Britain. I am not confident that he will succeed, but I am confident that no-one else will. As to Musk, he shoots off at the mouth in a way that I think is harmful. But he is the king of free speech so I won’t begrudge him exercising it. (BTW, for you Brits, “free speech” is a right you all used to have to say whatever you want without fear from PC Plod. You’ll find it in your history books if you have a look.)
The first step in fixing a problem is to understand it. It is self evident that the bureaucracy is the de facto government of the UK and that the cabinet are little more than their puppets, yet no one in the political class will admit this. By all means vote Reform to kill off the uniparty, but a Farage government working “with” the bureaucrats is unlikely to be much of an improvement.
Farage’s biggest problem is that four more years of the “mad mandarins” and people will be calling for blood, not Farage’s cosmetic tweaks.
To me, the loss of financing for various overseas efforts was a side benefit.
The main benefit was the loss, to the Democrats, of the myriad ways they had established of backfeeding so much of that money – half? – into the pockets of the connected Dems back home.
I love seeing how the Dems’ various funds and orgs and plans have suddenly gone broke. Poor Ken Martin, taking over the DNC fundraising efforts, was confronted with empty accounts.
I’d guess that this result was more of a driver of the DOGE anti-USAID effort than ending financing for trans hats in Bolivia.
Musk may well be right about Farage. I have doubts Farage will be the leader that is necessary when the moment comes, although he is certainly superior to Kemi Badenoch, let alone Starmer and co.
And for a nationalist party, it is probably best to not have the support from Musk. For a start a nationalist party can do without the look that it is overly dependent on a foreign billionaire. Musk is also very mercurial (in a way that almost makes Trump’s mercurialism seem quite normal in comparison) and seems to quickly fall out with former allies. Even when Musk may be right he often handles it in a cackhanded fashion. Musk may well be right about Trump and Epstein. Trump has handled the Epstein list thing so awfully that it can’t help but arouse suspicion. But Musk just blurted out that Trump was on the list but then backtracks, as if the drugs he was on have worn off.
In fairness, the USAID revelations by DOGE were very important as they exposed that so much international ‘independent’ media was American government propaganda operations all along. Although I believe a US judge apparently ruled closing USAID was somehow unconstitutional?
I also miss the Musk that went after the ADL. Very ballsy to go after that dubious organisation.
Martin – I can remember when Kemi Badenoch was highly praised (including by Perry), but the question “why does the lady not resign from the government if she fundamentally disagrees with its policies?” was there.
Robert Jenrick was not a “hardliner” – he started off as a supporter of David Cameron, but even the moderate Mr Jenrick became so disgusted by the gulf between the promises to do what the British people wanted, and the performance of giving in to the officials and “experts” (yes I know – a terrible pressure, I have said that myself multiple times) that he resigned in disgust.
It is true that he is a reasonably wealthy man (he did not need his minister pay) – but people a lot more wealthy than he is did not resign (and I know a few of them who now wish they had resigned).
Sadly, tragically, Kemi has not even come out clearly against the European Convention on Human Rights (which is horribly misnamed) – although the lady is moving in the direction of rejecting it. Perhaps the fear is that much of the Parliamentary Party would defect to the Liberal Democrats – in which case good riddance to them!
By the way – Elon Musk was talking bovine excrement about President Trump and the late Mr Epstein.
Indeed Mr Epstein was banned from the club that Donald John Trump owned – long before Mr Epstein was shunned by “polite society”.
Rour le Jour – indeed so.
Fraser Orr – I know of only one political leader in the world who has cut government spending.
President Milei of Argentina.
That should be obvious from the fact that, if there was anything compromising Trump, it would have come out in October 2024.
Other people (elsewhere) have already pointed this out. I mention it here, only because it serves as an example of how you can spot fake news by looking for contradictions with hard facts.
WRT USAID, i am with bobby; only, i would put it more strongly: my understanding is that, far from enhancing American “soft power”, it financed anti-American woke propaganda, at home and abroad.
But, to be fair to Johnathan, he did not say that USAID is an instrument of soft power: he said that “the way the USAID cuts were communicated” compromised US soft power.
Paul Marks:
Actually, Dan Mitchell had a blog post, perhaps a decade ago, listing countries where government spending had been cut.
IIRC that list included cuts performed by nominally “left-wing” governments, in Italy, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
They did it because they had the guts to face reality, instead of sticking their heads in the sand.
But i agree, nothing as impressive as what Milei is doing.
Interesting Snorri – and I do not doubt what you say.
Are any of these nations cutting government spending presently?
It is worth noting that the British government, in the shape of the “Home Office” (a government department), has undertaken legal action AGAINST the British people – who do-not-want the “asylum seekers”. And it is worth noting that the judges of the Court of Appeal have found for the government AGAINST the local people (although the case is on going).
Well at least it is now clear where we are – the government, including the judges, are against the British people.
In reply to Paul @4:35pm:
I hunted down Dan Mitchell’s blog post, and it turns out that i was wrong.
In the list, there are only 3 countries which reduced gov.spending: Singapore, Taiwan, and Latvia.
The other countries increased spending — but by less than the increase of GDP. Which means that the relative burden of government decreased. Which does the job if kept up for decades, but is still far short of Milei’s achievements.
NZ cut spending from $23bn in ’91 to $21.8bn in ’92 to $21bn in ’93.
Thank you Snorri.
Thank you TomJ.
As Snorri points out – dramatic action to reduce government spending is needed and is needed now.
Presently (today) only President Milei seems to be taking serious action on this matter.