I was as appalled as I dare say many of you to discover that Reform’s candidate in the forthcoming Makerfield by-election has a social media history of being opposed to the concept of abortion on demand. Those who wish to whitewash Robert Kenyon’s views will argue that this (reported) stance simply puts the candidate in roughly the same area as the Pope, Buddha, the Islamic scholars, Hinduism, Judaism, much of the world and UK populations and indeed the law.
But it’s this kind of whataboutery which is, to my mind, destroying politics. If rank misogyny like this is not called out and stamped upon, hard, we will soon find ourselves living in a fascist state where people like Kenyon are allowed to parade around in black leather jodhpurs screaming their adoration for the Führer while herding vulnerable minorities – and, let’s face it, majorities – into cattle trucks.
The solidity of that alternative vote on the right should be of concern to Reform
It was also reported that Kenyon was dubious regarding the efficacy of female football referees, which only compounds his crimes as everybody knows they are bloody marvellous and often get decisions right.
No, Messrs Farage and Kenyon – the usual apology will not suffice. Kenyon and Reform generally need to let it be known that they support, unequivocally, the right for all women to have abortions on demand and – an important rider, this – regardless of whether they are actually pregnant or not. As well as a right to retrospective abortions for those whose children are under the age of 16.
A few clarifying words would be appreciated too on Reform’s policies regarding Israel – quite how they can offer support for a state that cheerfully murders children escapes me.
And so the mainstream media has descended on the CV of Kenyon and not found terribly much to frighten the horses. The caravan will soon move on to the CV of Sarah Wakefield, the new Green candidate, in the hope that photographs might materialise of her attending a Hamas bring-and-buy sale dressed in a keffiyeh, chomping fattoush and denouncing, with radical, garlicky, Levantine breath, Jews.
My guess is that the revelations regarding Kenyon will have the effect of marginally raising his vote locally, although I have no hard evidence for that. And Ms Wakefield? I don’t think there’s much anyone could discover which would alter the Green vote up or down, unless it was revealed after painstaking research that she was actually fairly close to sanity, in which case you can knock a couple of points off her poll ratings.
A bigger problem for Kenyon and Reform UK is the presence on the ballot paper of the Restore Britain candidate, the local businesswoman Rebecca Shepherd – a personable kind of Karren Brady manqué. The MSM have noticed this too, and those on the right of the political spectrum unleashed unrestrained fury upon Rupert Lowe’s merry band of travellers, arguing that they are going to hand Andy Burnham a victory in the by-election and thus usher in a terrifyingly left-wing Labour government that will make Pol Pot resemble Nick Clegg.
I don’t quite buy this – largely because I don’t think that the by-election will be anywhere near as tight as a lot of people are suggesting, and that Ms Shepherd’s name on the list will not make very much difference at all: Burnham will win. The polls already have him three points ahead and half of the constituency hasn’t even realised there’s a by-election taking place.
But the performance of Restore Britain needs to be watched and watched carefully, because in the wider scheme of things it could be the early sounding of a death knell for Reform.
Why are they there, Restore Britain? One man’s hubris and vaulting ambition? Perhaps, in part. Lowe has made no bones about his disrespect for Farage, even if he continues to insist – as he did to me this week – that his party is not taking voters from Reform. It is instead bringing in new people who may not have voted for many years.
Nope, don’t quite buy it, Rupert. The 7 per cent who the polls have down to vote Restore would, to my mind, transfer immediately over to Reform if Ms Shepherd withdrew. But the solidity of that alternative vote on the right – seeing the speed and almost totality with which the left-wing candidates have seen their votes disintegrate – should be of concern to Reform. There is a sizeable chunk of the right-wing electorate which has been alienated from Farage’s party, perhaps sufficient to ruin its chances in a general election.
Why would Restore want to do that, though? Politically, it is tilted slightly further to the right than Reform, even if Lowe, whose relationship with the media is what I would describe as ‘weird’ (although some of it is perhaps a businessman’s disdain for journos in general), has not spelled out precisely how much further to the right Restore is, and often hedges when asked directly. But there is the whiff of sulphur when Islam and immigration are mentioned, even if it is more implied than directly expressed. We will see, when Lowe publishes his inquiry into Asian rape gangs, how deep his antipathy is.
Conversely, Restore is also dragging in voters who cannot quite bring themselves to vote for Farage, simply because they don’t like the chap. That is true of most of the Restore voters I know in the north-east – and the prospect of handing this by-election and perhaps the next general election to Labour does not bother them one bit.
‘I don’t care,’ one local candidate told me. ‘The same accusations could have been made about Reform in 2024, taking votes from the Tories.’ He added that the migration over to Reform of ‘failed’ Tory bigwigs had accelerated an already present disillusion.
Keep an eye on the Restore vote in Makerfield, then. It may not be a deciding factor this time, but it might well in the future.
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