The basic justification that Lowe’s online supporters offer for abandoning Reform at precisely the moment when they seem poised to destroy not one but both of the established political parties and usher in a government of a new party for the first time in a century is that the party as a whole, and Nigel Farage in particular, cannot be trusted to deliver on the priorities of the right, especially regarding immigration and demographics.
[…]
This is an attitude which plagues the British Right. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Politics is not a game in which the loser receives a consolation prize and a pat on the back. The stakes now are too high. Either we take power, by whatever means, or we’re done for. A future where there is no right-wing government in 2029 looks incredibly bleak. I do not want to risk backing the weaker horse, especially when its policy is practically identical to that of Reform, just because some of its leaders say the words I want to hear more vehemently and care less about the political impact of doing so. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened at the precise moment when the path became clear on both sides for Reform to win a victory at the next election. The desire to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is palpable.
Read the whole thing.
Unless Reform UK win a strong working majority at the next general election the UK will be ruined. (It may already be too late.)
The Gorton and Denton by-election today is expected to be close. Perhaps the Reform UK candidate will win, but perhaps the Green candidate will win.
The Greens have put out election communications in Urdu, yet we are told that it is Reform UK that is divisive. That is the opposite of the truth.
The alliance between the Greens and the muslims might seem to suit both of them in the short term, but is mad if you look at their policies and principles.
It will be interesting to know, if it is possible to know, the percentage support each candidate gets in the in-person voting and the postal voting. Muslim community leades controlling the postal vote of their communities is dangerous for the rest of the country.
Perhaps if the Green candidate wins people swill start to look more closely at two things: the policies of the Greens and the influence of muslim communities. And recognise the danger.
But if the Reform UK candidate wins the general situation is only slightly improved; the need for Reform UK to succeed nationally remains.
Well – Restore has made Reform return to a policy of mass deportations, which Mr Farage had seemed to abandon some time ago. Stopping mass immigration will NOT save this nation – it is too late for just stopping mass immigration to achieve much (although it might delay the death of England for a few years – giving those of us who are old a chance to live out what years remain to us) – as natural increase, births, of hostile populations has taken over. Voluntary self-deportation might be possible – if the various edicts (“laws”) passed over many decades are repealed – as the country would no longer be so attractive for the hostiles. After all there was libertarian “free migration” in the Victorian Age – but only a few foreign people (such as my great-grandfather – a Russian Jewish wrestler) came to this country in Victorian times – as no one was forced to welcome them, and the only “public services” offered to them was the Work House.
But I agree that splitting the vote is fatal in a first-past-the-post voting system.
If the Advance UK candidate and the Conservative candidate (yes the Conservative candidate as well – Jacob Rees-Mogg begged the party not to put up a candidate – but Central Office would-not-listen) get enough votes to give the by-election today to the, totalitarian, Green Party candidate – it will be a tragedy.
I am sure that Perry, Thomas Fairfax and James Strong (and others) will be totting up the votes that Advance UK and the Conservative candidate get – and if they are enough to give the seat to the Green Party, they will be outraged – and rightly so.
However, a word of warning about “do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good” arguments.
This is what we heard from 2010 to 2024 – “yes Paul we have not repealed the Equality Act or the Environment Act and we are carrying on all the leftist policies of the Progressive establishment – but would you rather have a Labour Party government?”
Indeed this argument did not start in 2010 – it started in 1990, when Margaret Thatcher was betrayed.
Since 1990 there has been no real effort to resist “Progressive” policies pushed by the “educated” establishment – on immigration, on government spending (“we have spent more money than Labour promised to spend!” said Prime Minister John Major – as if this was an achievement rather than a disgrace), on taxation, on regulation, essentially on anything. What happened to Prime Minister Liz Truss was instructive – Prime Minister Liz Truss did not adopt any “racist” or “Islamophobic” policies – the lady just wanted tax rates to be a bit lower, and the establishment destroyed her for that – indeed indoctrinated the public to bleat (mindlessly) that “Liz Truss crashed the economy” – in reality Liz Truss was not allowed to do anything.
Even the vote for independence in 2016 led to NOTHING – as we were told (by Mrs May and so on) that the British people had NOT voted for independence – they had voted for “Brexit” a meaningless term – which allowed all European Union and general International Community policies, to just carry on.
If “do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good” means more post 1990 style politics – then it means the death of this nation.
I admire Kemi Badenoch – but her failure to answer back on a key point is disturbing.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer regularly denounces the “conspiracy theories” of ex Prime Minister Liz Truss – and Kemi has never once said “they are not conspiracy theories – they are the bitter truth”.
“But Paul it would be political suicide to say that – as the public have been indoctrinated to despise, and laugh at, Liz Truss”.
If we have reached a stage where to tell the truth on tax rates (not “racism” not “Islamophobia” – tax rates) is “political suicide” – then we are truly doomed as a nation.
“do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good” is not as important as the UK “Right” descending into the People’s Front of Judea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4
We have been lied to by decades by those advocating the same things and we understand that. Ruperts party isn’t 100% what I want. To be honest I doubt there is a single person on the so called right who 100% lines up with any party.
I like Nigel, he brought us Brexit, he was Brexit, and we owe him a lot, but he walked away and let the government screw up that win so we have the mess we have now. He did the same with UKIP and now he has shown it is his way or the highway. He looks no different as a party to the tories and labour, he is tory light and will soon be a full replacement for the tory party. He won’t make the changes we need.
I believed that Reform were the last chance for us to get sorted before it turns into violence. I now see that they will make no difference and that Restore is that last chance.
Sure the vote will be split but the tories and labour take turns as well as the left vote is split. Reform is simply going to split the middle of the board where labour and the tories are.
I now believe it is going to be between Reform on the left and Restore on the right.
What a ridiculous thing to say. How the hell was the implementation of Brexit Farage’s fault? You do remember that he was’t in government between 2016 and 2020? Now of course, when Farage is making compromises in order to get elected and to be able to make changes, the Restore lot claim Reform is “controlled opposition” and that Farage has sold out.
“it is an impossibility to deport hundred of thousands of people – we simply can not do it” Nigel Farage in 2024 in his GB News interview with Steven Edgington.
If is is impossible to deport “hundreds of thousands of people” how is it possible to deport MILLIONS of people? Or is the plan simply to slow down the death of this nation – rather than prevent the death of this nation.
Still that was in 2024 and it is now 2026 – the policy appears to have changed, now, we are told, mass deportations will be done.
And the vote splitting argument is a strong one – if Matt Goodwin does not win today, because some people voted for the Advance U.K. and the Conservative candidate – that will be a very bad thing.
The vote splitting must stop – if this nation is to have any hope at all of surviving.
I think there is very little hope for the survival of this nation – but I hope I am mistaken.
Farage has an actual history of diligently working to bring about significant political change – Brexit. No other Party is led by such a person. He didn’t do it without supporters (thank you people) but he persevered.
Like the linked article says: “This is an attitude which plagues the British Right…The desire to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is palpable.”
I ‘m guessing you can’t see it but by backing Restore you might as well be voting for a Green/Labour Britain.
Discovered Joys – although independence was betrayed (we got meaningless “Brexit” instead), what you say is true – without the campaigning of Mr Farage over many years, the independence referendum would not have happened and it is not the fault of Mr Farage that it did not lead to change.
There’s some justice in the argument that Reform supporters are in no position to whine about Restore etc “splitting the right” as that is precisely what Reform has done to the Tories.
But it seems to me that Reform has some fair counters :
1. “We’re not identical to the Tories policy wise” – which is hard for Restore to say
2. We waited patiently and fairly politely for a quarter of a century for the Tories to man up on the EU, and even after we’d won and the Tories said they’s implement Brexit, they welshed. Until we returned to the fray and drove them down to 9% in the EU elections. It’s obvious that they will choose not to deliver, unless they have a knife at their throat 24/7. Whereas Restore’s concerns that Reform may not deliver are speculation. There’s no 25 year track record of dodging and weaving when in government
3. Reform’s revolt has “won” – at least for now they’re the biggest party on the right. If Restore get 5%, I’m a Dutchman.
If Reform win a clear majority in 2029, then I’m confident that they will not succeed, in the sense of doing all the things that their supporters want and returning Blighty to its ancient glories. But I am moderately confident that they can turn the tiller to starboard and turn the ship from north west to north east. Not as good as full east, but it’s half a loaf and I’m not greedy.
Deep by election post mortem 🙂
Greens up 27%, Reform up 14%, Labour down 25%, Tories down 6%, Workers Party (George Galloway front) down 10% – didn’t stand. No evidence of Reform having any serious enemy on the right.
So broadly – Greens got 10% from even further left loony Workers Party and 17% from Labour. Reform got 6% from Tories and 8% from Labour. So Labour collapse went two thirds to the Greens, and one third to Reform. Combined right wing vote up by 8%.
Which suggests to me that there will be a fair amount of tactical voting in the next General Election, especially in seats where there’s a clear leader amongst the lefty parties, and/or the righty parties. I assume the various beancounters will be sending out lists of who’s leading in each seat – which will be a mixture of solid research, wishful thinking and lies.
An encouraging sign for me is that the Tories went almost into negative numbers. Suggesting that outside the leafy South East where the Tories are particularly Lib Dem-adjacent, there isn’t a loyal Tory vote. So Reform should get it if they’re the clear champion on the right. Also good news for the Lib Dems as they would seem to be clear leaders of the lefty team in all the seats they already have.
Civil war. Good luck. We’ll root for you.
Either we take power, by whatever means, or we’re done for.
That ‘by whatever means’ rather raises an eyebrow.
I have covered the by-election in a comment on another thread – Gorton and Denton has a Collectivist majority, most voters there believe in endless government spending and regulations, regardless of the horrible failure of these policies, and blame “the rich” for everything – even if “the rich” flee the country (as Perry has done) the majority of people in Gorton and Denton would still blame them for everything. They would still believe there have been “cuts in government spending” when government spending has been massively increased every year for decades, and they would still attack “unregulated markets” even though there are more regulations than ever before.
That does NOT mean that most people in Britain are like that – at least I hope not.
The one good thing is that it is clear that if the Conservative Party, Advance U.K. and the Libertarian Party (yes there was a Libertarian candidate) had not stood for election – it would have made no difference, Matt Goodwin would still have lost.
Matt Goodwin is a good man – but there was nothing he could have done against the ideological leftism of the place he was standing for election in.
Even if the Arch Angel Michael, with his flaming sword, had been the Reform Party candidate – he would have lost in Gorton and Denton.
Would be curious to see final breakdown of the vote by race and religion. Polling just before the election suggested Reform would get 41pc of the white vote but 8pc of non-whites. If Gorton and Denton is a write off, it is almost entirely due to immigration and its consequences.
Martin – the left has held this area (under various constituency boundaries) for over 90 years. The last election they were defeated, in this area, was in 1931 (when the Labour Party split).
There were very few nonwhites in the area up to a few decades ago.
Even if every non white person voted Green – how do you explain the thousands of people who voted Labour?
Between them the Green Party and the Labour Party had the vast majority of the vote.
By the way – I do NOT disagree with you that the Reform Party has not made inroads into the Islamic vote (remember Muslims can be of any skin tone) – so pushing forward Zia Yusef and other Muslims (and pushing out Rupert Lowe and others) has not gained the Reform Party Islamic votes – but Gorton and Denton was clearly a “write off” anyway.
There is also no consistent “non white vote” – for example the Muslims and Hindus of the city of Leicester (a few miles from me) are mostly brown of skin tone – but they are not exactly best friends, and do not vote the same way.
Some areas of Gorton and Denton are indeed 40% Islamic – but other areas of the same Constituency are much LESS Islamic than that.
Would the Reform Party have won had there been no Muslims in the Constituency? Perhaps – but it is doubtful.
Also those people who did vote Reform Party might NOT have done had there been no Muslims at all living in the Constituency.
So Martin might, perhaps, come back at me and argue this is a “Catch 22” type situation – before a constituency changes its demography “white” (pinkish gray) voters do not see any need to vote for “the right” – and after it does change demographically, it is too late to do anything about it.
It also voted 50pc for Brexit despite long having voted Labour.
Reform, Ukip, BNP etc in the past have made inroads in getting white working class voters to defect from Labour who would not normally if ever consider voting conservative.
My understanding is the Denton area of the constituency is 90pc white, mostly working class. In the whole constituency less than half the people voted. One thing clearly apparent from other successful campaigns that sought to motivate anti-establishment sentiment – such as Brexit or Trump presidential races – is the need to get those who don’t normally vote at all because they hate the establishment parties equally to come out for you.
My original home city, Hull, voted two thirds for Brexit in 2016. It has been a left wing stronghold for decades. But there are much more traditionally Tory areas who showed a much stronger pro-EU sentiment. You could just write it off as irredeemable. But the old party loyalties are weaker than ever and while Hull would probably never vote Tory, it could be a fruitful target for a more insurgent right wing party. In 2016 the turnout in Hull was 62pc in the Brexit vote. Checking the Hull constituencies in 2024 that all elected Labour MPs but Reform came 2nd, the turnouts are much lower than for that 2016 referendum. If those absentee voters could be motivated to come out, could be a game changer.
Martin – in your latest comment you have given me a lot to think about.