Nigel Farage's Return: What This Changes
A 'Canada 93' situation now has a chance, albeit small, of happening.
It’s annoying when you write an article outlining how you think people should vote in an election, and go on
’s podcast to expand on your points, only for the situation to fundamentally change so much that you need to write a new article revising your previous perspective.When I wrote the article on the upcoming British election on July 4th, it was with the (then) knowledge that Richard Tice would lead Reform into the election and Nigel Farage would not be returning. This would mean that it would not outpoll the Tories or get anywhere close, making ‘Zero Seats’ a complete impossibility, hence my frustration with Reform’s strategy of not selectively standing in ‘Conservative in Name Only’ (CINO) seats as deliberate spoilers.
Richard Tice’s appeal was very limited, though his leadership was not the complete disaster that many people say it was. If Richard Tice had stayed, I still think the vote share of Reform would have remained respectable, coming somewhere close to UKIPs 2015 national vote share.
The worst part about Tice’s leadership however was not his lack of charisma, but his strategy of standing in every seat. Reportedly, Farage was more open to my approach, but it was Tice who was adamant that Reform candidates would never step aside.
Farage’s timing could not be better. With under a month to go, and Rishi Sunak’s campaign going from bad to worse, Reform looks poised to have a last minute surge. It is not inconceivable that Reform and the Tories could both poll in the high teens, and Reform even has a chance to poll a few percentage points ahead, the latter of which would be a ‘Canada 1993’-style situation, when the Reform Party of Canada outpolled the Progressive Conservatives and reduced them from a majority to 2 seats.
I still think a better strategy would have been to selectively stand and focus on reshaping the Conservative Party. However, with candidates already selected and a large amount of powerful actors against this, the next best thing would be for Reform to succeed in outpolling the Tories.
This is a high-risk strategy, and won’t allow a consolidation; in our electoral system, if you want to replace one of the two main parties, you have to hit the target the first time, and you will stumble badly if you miss. This is what happened to the (old) SDP in 1983 when it tried to replace Labour.
However, now that Reform has a chance of coming second (Labour will still definitely win), we should try and make it happen.
Revised Vote Plan
I would now recommend only voting Conservative if your standing MP is ‘particularly’ based.
There was some confusion in my last election endorsement who to vote for if you don’t know where your Tory MP stands. My previous advice was to try to find out.
However now that Farage has the potential to make Reform come second, I would recommend only voting for a few notable Conservative MPs, namely those from Common Sense Group and New Conservatives, that are listed on Wikipedia. Presume everybody else is a CINO and vote Reform instead.
It is in our interest that Reform comes second and replaces the Conservative Party. Now that has a chance of happening, we should aim for it.
Problems with Reform
When I saw Reform simply as a spoiler, my criticisms of them were less important. However, with them replacing the Tories now a real possibility, the weaknesses are now of higher salience.
Whilst the average Reform candidate is better than the average Tory MP, the lack of internal party democracy means there is less scope to push Reform further to the right than there was to push the Tories further to the right. Nigel Farage is a very effective gatekeeper, he was more responsible than anybody else for the BNP’s death, and starved UKIP of oxygen when he left it for going further right than he was comfortable with.
But with Reform MPs in Parliament, there is no reason why they couldn’t defect and start a more formalised, democratic party. Farage would need to be on board with this, but he has expressed interest in ‘re-founding’ the Conservative Party on the Canadian model, which was my original suggestion.
Starting the party from scratch would have numerous advantages. We could make it a democratic and ideologically-focused party right from the start without the Tory grandees and CINOs obstructing our efforts. The flavour of this new party would be far less institutionalist and far more movement-driven.
Reform as an outfit is more of a Political Action Committee (PAC) to elect candidates rather than a political actor in its own right. The brand is fickle and will likely not last past this election, but if it helps elect a slate of very strong MPs, that would be a good thing.
Whilst Richard Tice’s capitulation to Hope Not Hate was terrible, if Reform is simply the vehicle by which a more democratic and mass membership right-wing party can be forged, it will prevent the monopolisation of boomer conservatives like him.
Conclusion
So, if you have a Tory MP who is part of the Common Sense Group or New Conservatives, my advice is unchanged.
But if the MP is not listed on Wikipedia, vote Reform.
No Kemi Badenoch in those lists, I quite like her. My constituency is Labour and we have a Reform candidate so I'll be voting Reform