Reform in No. 10? As the prospect gets more likely, the hand-wringing gets more theatrical. Should Reform somehow form the next government, we are told, Britain will descend into a dystopian ‘far-right’ nightmare of book-burnings, jackboots and midnight raids. Heavy words are thrown about very lightly: fascist, authoritarian, and my new favourite ‘post-democratic’.
The real problem is not this name-calling. It is the scale of what Reform would have to do, just to shepherd the country back to its relatively sane status of 1996
This is, of course, nonsense. With Farage as PM, the world will not end. Britain will not become some kind of Fourth Reich. What will be genuinely scary, and squeaky on the old keister, is the sheer scale of the task Reform would face, and the ferocity of the resistance it will provoke from a progressive establishment that has not lost power in several generations – arguably since Margaret Thatcher’s resignation.
But back to the phantom menace. Progressives have a pathological thirst for a ‘far right’ to fight. In America, the Southern Poverty Law Center, once a respected civil rights outfit, has been exposed for its promiscuous labelling of mainstream conservatives as ‘hate groups’, and is now facing serious charges of funding its own opposition. Here in Britain, we witnessed the bizarre spectacle in 2024, post-Southport, of vast demonstrations against far-right bogeymen who simply did not exist. City streets were filled with protestors standing bravely against a threat that lived only in their heads.
They will do the same again. A Reform government will be called fascist the moment the exit poll hits Channel 4. The label has long since ceased to mean anything; it is simply a progressive bat-signal.
Progressives, ludicrously, regarded Theresa May – the ‘trans-inclusive’ begetter of net zero – as some sort of proto-Mussolini. Boris Johnson oversaw an explosion of immigration. But he was also ‘fash’. There is no rationality here, only emotional incontinence. And we ain’t seen nothing yet.
But the real problem is not this name-calling. It is the scale of what Reform would have to do, just to shepherd the country back to its relatively sane status of 1996. The economy is in a terrible state, in hock to international investors ready to pounce at the first hint of recklessness. Fixing things will require ten times the political courage that Margaret Thatcher showed in 1979. And that courage will be tested immediately by the establishment machine.
Civil servants may well refuse orders. Quangos will leak. The courts will be weaponised. Every roadblock imaginable will be thrown up; and that’s before we even reach the cultural front.
I have lived through two periods of Tory government as an adult. On both occasions a gigantic cultural apparatus – the BBC, universities, arts orgs and NGOs – went into overdrive to secure the government’s expulsion. With Reform, the intensity of the same phenomenon will be tuned to an even more hysterical pitch, like antibodies trying to fight off an infection.
The press, for all these faults, has a terrible habit of reporting what politicians actually say and do. We mustn’t forget that they liked Starmer’s Labour, that they gave it the benefit of every doubt, that they expected – and wanted – it to succeed. And… well, here we are. This is how bad things can get for a government when the press likes you. And almost nobody in the press likes Reform.
Even if Reform succeed, success itself becomes a provocation. People hate being proved wrong and made to look silly. It only makes them angrier. People very rarely shrug and say ‘fair do’s, I had that all wrong’. The deeper question is how many people are actually wedded to the progressive consensus. Like the greengrocer in Václav Havel’s famous essay, many in the arts, media, law and unions may simply be going through the motions – nodding along because it is the done thing, because careers depend on it, because dissent is costly. It could all be an illusion. Reform’s task is to test that illusion without collapsing in the attempt.
That requires iron discipline. Every move must be proofed and war-gamed to destruction. The proposed network of detention centres in Green constituencies is the sort of daring and bold policy that is needed, and it is also funny, which is something we could do with.
But such trolling must be backed by serious intent and competent execution. A Liz Truss-style blunderbuss is the last thing the country can afford. Early, visible wins – tangible rewards for voters – are essential to build momentum before the first big counter attacks begin.
Some in Reform’s ranks undoubtedly give cause for pause. The occasionally wince-inducing tone of figures such as Zia Yusuf or Andrea Jenkyns – easily goaded and prone to own goals – must be knocked out. The rough-and-ready branding that delighted the base during opposition must now give way to something more surgical. Serious media training from aggressive, battle-hardened interlocutors is not optional; it is survival.
What I hope insiders such as James Orr and Danny Kruger are already doing is preparing a secret plan to hamstring the progressive establishment before it can mobilise. Lawfare will be coming; primary legislation must move at breakneck speed. Think of Dominic Cummings’s prorogation gambit or the vaccine rollout – but on maximum power. In the longer term, Reform must do the things that even the Thatcher government failed to do; for example, to kick progressivism out of education. The last Conservative attempt – a ludicrously toothless prohibition on political teaching – achieved precisely nothing.
What is required is Blair-era legislative hyperactivity in reverse: sweeping, unapologetic reform of the curriculum, the universities, the quangos, the arts councils, the unions. The entire ecosystem will be aggressively hostile. It must be confronted head-on.
The one big advantage Reform possesses is that progressives have forgotten how to fight. They are so used to getting their own way, so accustomed to institutional capture rather than argument, that they no longer even understand their conservative opponents and what they actually want. This gives Reform a crucial head start.
Under Reform, Britain will not become fascist. But given luck and a hell of a lot of nerve, it might just possibly become normal again. And that, for some, will be the most terrifying prospect of all.
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