Farage can’t save Reform from wipeout

Britain’s Reform-UK sounds like a political party. It’s actually the private company unsuccessful commodity trader Nigel Farage (61) created to publicise his pet ideas.

In Oxfordshire the May election gave it a worse result than anyone else. Reform started with two Tory defectors – both kicked out - and won one new seat, so it lost half its councillors. The Tories lost 46%, Labour lost a quarter, and the LibDems gained 80%: not quite the “Reform sweeps the board” myth commentators keep repeating.

I got one explanation while delivering leaflets for my wife Liz, the Council’s LibDem Leader

“That woman”, said a voter pointing at her photo, “has ruined my life. She’s only lived here 20 years. She wouldn’t listen to us about that new development, so our kids lost their playground. You’d be dead before getting a doctor’s appointment these days. People like her stop anyone local affording a house. She’s ruined the town for us”

He went on. Not mentioning that his house will make his heirs worth millions. Or the miles of open countryside children can play in or that life expectancy’s soared since they were born. He wanted his children to have the town he’d grown up in and blamed Liz for stopping them.

He’d already sent off his postal vote for Labour. He couldn’t imagine anyone trusting Farage or his party though he liked some of Nigel’s ideas. He’d never seen a Reform candidate and couldn’t believe its leaflet didn’t mention any local policy, the candidate’s name or anything they’d ever done. 

But he had met Liz and respected her for never promising what she couldn’t deliver. He still didn’t like her, but he’d consider voting for her - next time.

Though one of Britain’s richest counties, Oxfordshire has some of its most deprived areas. Many locals blame incomers for swamping the county. Pollster IPSOS found voters criticised public services like schools, healthcare, and policing everywhere. With a LibDem council, twice as many voters appreciated their quality of life as when the council was Reform. Even a poor county like Shropshire

Farage describes himself as a Marmite candidate because some people like Marmite, though it leaves a nasty taste in other people’s mouths.  I’d say he’s more like Oswald Mosley (Britain’s prewar Fascist  Leader) than Marmite: fond of inflammatory speeches, pally with dictators, hopeless at government and, by his dotage, a pub bore past his prime.

Moderates won this spring’s Romanian election - but people still worry about Eurosceptic Karol Nawrocki’s victory in Poland and Reform’s near-win in Scotland,

Nawrocki mistrusts formal alliances because the Allies broke their wartime guarantees to Poland. He mistrusts the EU but (like Italy) welcomes Europe’s free trade agreements though he’d prefer fewer trade concessions to Ukraine.  He’s no Nigel, but a typical modern Pole: tough, individualistic and a good neighbour.  In Scotland, people with a grudge used to vote Nationalist, but Labour’s electoral machine halved the Nats’ vote. Reform took the other grudgers.

Reform’s local council manifesto promised policy changes on migration, border control, health, tax and energy. But the London government sets these policies: County Councils can’t change them. Reform thinks they’d still save a lot on programmes like diversity or equality. There isn’t that much to save: Kent’s cost less than two percent of its £2.6 billion annual budget.

The rest funds over a thousand legal requirements – like social care, waste collection, road maintenance and libraries – where mismanagement means fines or electoral defeat. After the election Farage told Reform councils to fire diversity officers: the kind of arbitrary diktat that would guarantee wrongful dismissal lawsuits costing far more than he’d ever save.

The real opportunity to vote on Farage’s “reforms” will be the General Election in about four years’ time. There’ll be hundreds more elections before then: hundreds more chances for voters to realise local councils can’t deliver any of them. Why isn’t he keeping his powder dry till an election about “reforms” he could deliver?  If he won it.

Real politicians accept responsibility. At Farage’s age, Liz blamed herself for losing a campaign: “I got it wrong” she said. “If I do it again, shoot me”.   This May, his losing candidates blamed the winners: “LibDems only do what voters tell them, like repairing roads” they told each other. “They don’t talk about what Nigel wants, like banning burqas”

Wannabe autocrats like Nigel would be dangerous if they weren’t so lazy: but they’d rather rant about grudges than deal with them. Pays better too.