March 9, 2025 - 8:00am
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that politics is harder than it looks. Although it is the quintessential spectator sport, and though our rulers may seem maddeningly stupid, the reality is that most people are unlikely to do any better. Established parties are established for a good reason, and this is a lesson which Reformâs supporters, and its leadership, are learning the hard way.
A week ago, the very mention of Reform struck fear in the hearts of Labour and Tory hacks, as the insurgent party regularly topped polls. But over the last few days, it has suffered a very public split. In short, Rupert Lowe, one of Reformâs five MPs, criticised Nigel Farage in a Daily Mail interview in which he suggested that Farage may not be party leader at the next election. As the partyâs second most prominent MP, it was not hard to guess who he had in mind as his replacement.
Farage first struck back with words; but on Friday Reform announced it had reported Lowe to the police on allegations that he had threatened violence against Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform. In addition, it said it was investigating Lowe for bullying. His whip was naturally suspended too. (Lowe energetically contests the allegations.) It does not take a conspiracy theorist to think that the timing of Reformâs accusations is not coincidental.
Reform is only experiencing what most populist parties tend to suffer at some point in their existence. To thrive, such a party needs to become professionalised, with procedures and staff and all the boring paraphernalia of a modern political organisation. But populist parties tend to attract the sort of person who dislikes managerialism, while repelling the professionals who keep mainstream parties on the road.
The result is that such parties tend to find it difficult to find good people to work for them and are prone to interpersonal drama, particularly when there are several strong personalities involved, which is almost invariably the case. The weakness of party structures also means that they tend to be highly personalistic affairs centred around a charismatic leader, in this case Nigel Farage, for whom parties are but vehicles for whatever happens to be his agenda at a given time.
Ironically, the lack of professionalism within Reform, in addition to the lack of a policy platform, was Loweâs main grievance. Having been elected, he thought he would rather like to be in government one day, and was reportedly frustrated by the lack of seriousness in the ad hoc way things were run, which Lowe thought meant that Reform was failing to capitalise on its lead in the polls.
What happens next? Although Lowe has a large personal following, it is nowhere near Farageâs. Nor does he have much recognition among the non-chronically online. He may have to strike out on his own, maybe taking with him his supporters â or perhaps take over a small insurgent party. Reform will probably survive the fracas, although its aura of invincibility is gone.
Conservatives, meanwhile, will discreetly gloat. Although the Tories cannot claim to be particularly well-run or free from drama, the latest flare-up within Reform will be a good reminder to Right-wing voters and donors disenchanted with the Conservative Party that it still enjoys the services of a relatively professional group of people as well as centuries of accumulated experience and brand respectability.
In the short term, the risk of a coup attempt against Kemi Badenoch is probably also reduced, as fewer Tory MPs would want to emulate Reformâs public meltdown, at least for now. Four years is a long time, and it may be that Reform is getting the teething problems out its system before it really matters. On the other hand, if there is too much melodrama, it may disintegrate.
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SubscribeReform isn’t a professional outfit at all, as my 90 day membership proved.
For the most part all that one’s membership manifests as, is an unregulated WhatsApp shitshow, with a combination of old-man-shakes-fist-at-cloud-ism, conspiracy whackos, belligerent evangelical Christians, and the occasional pervert.
Crikey! Sounds just like all the other parties but with a slightly different mix of “activists”.
It will probably do well. After all, not so many years ago who would ever have thought that destroying industry, and jobs, would be an accepted main policy of all three “established parties”? Growth and employment used to be the aim…
The issue is that regardless of the types who join, a structure of branches, voting & generating boring discussion papers tends to eventually give you some plausible policy-making capacity.
Reform don’t have that, and in my three months, showed no sign of acquiring it.
I joined at the time when it was for the first time conceivable, given voting intentions as stated in the polls, that Reform could be a party of government, either in coalition or a looser arrangement.
So this seemed the time to see whether they were putting a policy structure in place, in preparation for the event down the track where there was an election and they might have a chance to be a part of government.
Policies take time to generate, especially if you haven’t had to do it before. And the machinery for churning them out is not a one-size-fits-all thing, it has to be fit for purpose, calibrated to suit the heads of the party, the membership & the folks who will/could vote for you.
Sadly, Reform didn’t look they were doing even one thing toward going down this route.
You paid for that membership by any chance?
One born every day.
LOL. Someone had dared ms to put my money (ÂŁ25 in this case) where my mouth is.
But more to the point, I wanted to see what they were like structurally, ie, do they have a machine for working through & cranking out policies.
This is marginally related to something I’m writing.
My view is they have no such machine, and showed no sign of developing one.
Just out of curiosity, the membership is designed to expire after 90 days or you (wisely) cancelled it after 90 days?
I just had a look. Apparently it’s ÂŁ25 per annum but you can cancel anytime. Maybe there is a vetting process you only get into if you apply to join? As you can imagine I didn’t look into it further.
Farcically there is a Policies tab. You click on it and it’s empty – just a photo of our Nige. It’s like Monty Python.
You obviously didnât click on âNigeâ because if you had it would have revealed the said document.
Hold my hands up. Had a look now. There’s obvious fair amount of twaddle and wishful thinking, but some stuff one can agree with too. The main issue is the heroism in the costing element. (I quite liked the tax free for frontline NHS workers in first 100 days though, but obviously would never happen). The first 100 day stuff of course means they’d be massively increasing national borrowing because any cost reductions they might deliver would come later if at all, and be wiped out by inevitable increased borrowing cost. The markets certainly wouldn’t buy it. They’d be lucky to deliver the most basic promises. It’s the classic prospectus of a pressure group that knows it’d never be in power and faced with governing reality. Of course there’s an element of Trumpism in that, but without the benefit of the Dollar. Same problem though – spraying populist promises about can then come back to haunt.
I zero’d in a bit more on kids and social media/smart technology. There is something, but largely a can kicked down the road. I’m personally disappointed in all the Parties on this. We’ve done great damage and still waking up to it.
Agreed, its the almost identical con trick to Brexit. Not the idea of ‘Brexit’ specifically, but rather selling Singapore on Thames with rock bottom taxes alongside mass state spending to satisfy the Red Wall etc. The 2 pitches are not remotely compatible, the whole project falls apart. I assume the same will happen with Reform.
I decided that it was fair to give them three months grace, in terms of the stuff I was writing. As stated, its ÂŁ25 a year.
Once I had what I regarded as a fair impression of what an active member could expect, ie, I’d go canvassing, went to one big Reform event in Essex etc, I resigned.
Hope to disillusionment in three months. Wow. I sympathise, Dumetrius.
All political parties have their lunatic fringe. They are tolerated, because they tend to be the kind of people who get out there, delivering leaflets and knocking on doors. But the established parties make sure the lunatic fringe never gets any influence. Generally. Corbyn was an example of where the lunatics took over. Same happened to the Republicans in America, with Trump.
New parties tend to attract the crazies, before the sane get a lookin. Can Reform mature, like the Greens in Germany? It’s odds against, I’d say, but we’ll see.
I’m not disillusioned – after all, this is the settled and understood narrative that critiques Reform – it’s hardly a secret.
I vote Reform myself, so I know the party is mainly a forum for expression of discontent.
What I wanted to do was to see if they had elements that could mature into something more constructive down the track.
As for Corbyn, I was quite pro JC. Even as a rightist, I think we need something-slash-anything, that breaks the established system.
If it comes from the left, okay. I’m up for that.
What a ray of sunshine this inevitable internal Reform brawl has been. So predictable, but at same time so joyous.
As Author highlights such parties find it difficult to get good people to work for them – no sh*t Sherlock. Good, competent people don’t want to work for a personal publicity vehicle of one person, nor be surrounded by crack pots and worse.
And all this before they get onto any kind of properly considered Policy portfolio where they’d full to pieces in contradictions anyway.
Looking forward to the gymnastic contortions that’ll be pulled in defence. Should be highly amusing.
Just goes to show that whatâs good for journalism is usually bad for the world.
Journalists just reported the utterances of Farage, Lowe and the comms out of Reform.
Maybe what’s bad for the World is Grifters conning folks.
Oh come off it! Journalists have an agenda and it isn’t enlightening the people with truth.
Never ever has a journalist “just reported” anything whatsoever. Every word they write has “spin”, intended to produce a result.
I said they’d be contortions. Pulling some shapes there MC.
Are you saying Lowe, Farage and Habib been misquoted? Please enlighten.
I was incredulous of your claim the Tories have brand respectability, the tory brand is now so toxic it is very likely they will not survive as a party.
There is now an opportunity for Reform to undo the damage immediately, by restoring the whip to Rupert Lowe and organising, within 2 months, a leadership election which must include all the membership.
This would see Reform take another step forward in professionalising the party and likely bring another surge in membership numbers.
‘Another step forward’?! Currently they are falling backwards tripping over each other. Hilarious.
To a foreigner Reform seem like bunch of late middle aged, male, red trouser wearing, erectile dysfunctional Sunday G and T drinkers at a pub in the Cotswolds. Add a guffaw to every sixth word and you have their policy statement. What an embarrassment to even call them a party.
Not sure i agree… yet i can’t but admire the characterisation!
A rather tired bunch of cliches. They are polling at approximately 25-27% in the opinion polls.
Josef, don’t forget class. At heart, everything in British politics is about class.
The Liberal Democrats is a protest party for nice, middle class people, the sort who think dinner is the evening meal.
Reform is the protest party for the the poor, the uneducated and the downtrodden. For them, dinner is the midday meal. If you remember the Blackadder TV series, Reform is for the Baldricks of British society.
Supper is the evening meal. Dinner is a more formal occasion.
Breakfast, dinner and tea are the three meals in a day!
Wishful thinking. The decline and fall of the Tory brand was instigated by the Tories themselves. Many former Tory voters want nothing further to do with the party and have walked away for good. This article is flawed because it assumes that the cyclical rotation of Lab/Con is the natural order of things. Wrong. What is happening now is a fundamental realignment in UK politics. The Tories are now being replaced by a disruptor on the right. UK Reform, for all its imperfections and glitches, is not a passing fad. It is the final nail in the Tory coffin. In time, the Labour Party will bite the dust too. Lab/Con belong to the last century.
As a former supporter of the Tories, I emphatically agree with you. We are in the mess we’re in because 14 years of Tory rule failed to tackle any of the issues that the criminal Blair instigated and this has now come to fruition with decaying institutions and a sense of failure with worse to come. Farage is not a team player but, nevertheless, the Tories have ruined our country and should never be supported again.
Never going back to the tories, no matter what.
This piece has certainly brought out the Reform diehards in droves.
The problem for Reform is Farage. He’s the star player, no question. But he has a long track record of running the Farage Admiration Society (currently Reform, formerly Brexit Party and UKIP) as a one man band. And he has an equally long track record of screwing over anyone who disagrees with him.
He’s 60. He won’t change now. So Reform has a bit of a dilemma, n’est-ce pas?
I wouldnât call myself a diehard, but Iâll support Reform until a better option comes along.
Maybe Reform will betray us too, but itâs suicide to keep voting LibLabCon.
Fair enough. It gives the other parties food for thought. Let’s see what they come up with.