Is Reform Inevitable?

Everyone, even centrist-in-chief Rory Stewart, agrees that Britain needs reform. Crime, violent and petty, goes unpunished. Economic growth has flatlined since the Great Financial Crisis. Britons, especially young ones, are ashamed of their country. There lies the fundamental appeal of the Reform campaign: the current way, however articulated, isn't working and so the country needs something radically different. The party catapulted itself to the third most popular in Britain at the summer's General Election with a bold promise to break the two-party duopoly, reduce net migration to zero from its sky-high startpoint, and simultaneously cut taxes for everyone while reducing the budget. First Past the Post's tendency to protect established players prevented Reform from winning more than five seats outright. Nonetheless, the party's millions of votes nationwide made it a kingmaker in numerous constituencies and inaugurated a new era in British politics.

The Labour Party's loveless landslide turned out to be a rockfall. In announcing plans to extend inheritance tax to agricultural property and remove the Winter Fuel Allowance from the majority of pensioners, it sent itself somersaulting downwards, making way for the resurgence of the Right. When gifted the opportunity to remake itself anew, the Conservative Party membership, whom we can thank for the Liz Truss experiment, chose Kemi Badenoch to head the party in its era of renewal. This error was only exacerbated by the publication of figures on net migration, condemning the previously governing Conservatives further. For the first time in a long time, a party other than Labour or the Conservatives entered the vaunted top two spots in the polls. On this basis, Electoral Calculus predicts in excess of 170 seats for Reform at the next election and their acquiescence to a coalition which would make Kemi Badenoch Prime Minister.

Both Badenoch and Farage reject the possibility of co-operation between the Tories and Reform. In fact, Farage seems unwilling to share power with anyone. He elbowed Richard Tice to become party leader a month before the General Election. When Rupert Lowe received the coveted endorsement of Elon Musk and suggested that Farage could do with dropping his "Messiah" complex, allegations that Lowe had permitted workplace bullying and made a threat of violence against Farage acolyte Zia Yusuf suddenly surfaced. Lowe saw the whip suspended and Farage's Reform seems to have emerged from the row unscathed. But Farage's quick suppression of Lowe only proves his point; the Reform Party is simply a vehicle for the political ambitions of Nigel Farage. "Democratisation", though promised, is not what Reform's supporters want — they demand Farage at No. 10 and an army of Farage loyalists planted in constituency offices between Hove and the Hebrides.

Pictured: Reform's policy analyst, spokesman, chief whip and party leader
 Credit: Phil Noble/Reuters

Reform will find success because Reform is Farage and Farage finds success. No one capable of bringing about Brexit is anything less than a serious political operator. But the fact that Reform is bound to be a major player after the next General Election means that small-r reform is not on the way. Change will occur when Britons actually change their mind on the issues where they have allowed Britain to fail, not when turquoise ties replace red and blue ones. Consider more carefully the accusation that Labour and Conservatives constitute a "uniparty". There are identifiable ideological differences between Labour and the Conservatives, yet there seems to be an irreproachable, shared commitment to an anti-growth planning system, mass migration and infinite welfare payments to pensioners. No party wants to change public policy on these issues because Britons themselves would much prefer it if public policy did not change.

This sentiment does not seem to cohere with public polling. There are hordes of surveys saying that Britons think net migration, for instance, has been much too high. These polls, however, fail to reckon with the fact that politics is not made up of a series of unconnected, isolated decisions but rather requires us to accept tradeoffs. Britons might be willing to check a box on a survey to say that net migration is too high, but they are evidently unwilling to give up the cheap consumer services that mass migration makes available. Britons claim to support planning reform, but, as the term NIMBY implies, when faced with the prospect of new homes and businesses near them, tunes change dramatically. Reform is yet to occur because many Britons believe they have far too much to lose.

Reform will occur when Britons give up their personal stakes in the country's stymying planning system and opt for an economy of entrepreneurs. Change will occur when people stop tolerating the subjugation of our high streets and public transport to petty criminals and anti-social actors. Of course, there is also much need for change in policy. Entire books could (and have been) written detailing the dearth of quality in decision-making that has hurt Westminster in recent history. But for that change to mean anything, Britons must first reconsider what exactly it is that we value, and thus what we must give up.