I agree with James Ball in “The five political lessons of 2024” (TNE #417). Reform are a clear and present danger. The arithmetic may not favour small parties, but as Reform and its predecessors have shown, their influence is out of proportion to their size.
In many respects, Reform are already the piper playing the tune to which mainstream politics seems determined to dance. Labour is reticent about doing anything that could drive red wall voters to Reform and many Tories appear sympathetic to a merger, which could change the electoral map considerably.
As we have seen in the recent US election, Biden improved the US economy but was unable to reap the electoral rewards. Labour could easily suffer the same fate, even if they can drag the economy out of the doldrums (unlikely without rejoining the EU).
It should be remembered that Donald Trump did not just win because of his MAGA base. Many moderate Americans voted for him because they believed that he would be a better president for them. Here, there are many Tory voters who are sympathetic to the neoliberalism of Reform and could easily be persuaded (or duped) into voting for it.
Reform is the most significant threat to UK democracy in living memory and needs to be opposed. Not learning the political lessons, as the article makes clear, will only hand Farage the keys to No 10.
Mark Grahame
The only way to deal with Nigel Farage is all-out attack. As James Ball points out, “trying to be Farage-lite will not work”, and will simply allow him control of the agenda.
Here are some numbers that show how vulnerable Reform really is. A high proportion of the British people (at least 70% according to some polls) believe Brexit was a mistake, want the government to be serious about climate change, and deeply dislike Donald Trump. Farage – architect of Brexit, hostile to net-zero goals, and the UK’s biggest groveller to Trump – is on the wrong side of every one of these stats, and Labour should be attacking him on all fronts.
Likewise, his confected image as a “man of the people” (while his critics are all part of a supposed “elite”), needs to be shown up for the fairytale it is: Reform’s chairman and most of its MPs are privately educated multimillionaires, its treasurer is a billionaire, and its biggest foreign supporter is the richest man in the world. Man of the people, my arse. Don’t let him get away with this inversion of the truth.
This will require some repositioning on Labour’s part. Not least it needs to join the majority in recognising that Brexit has failed, and abandon the delusional idea of “making Brexit work”. Farage is easily neutralised, but only if Labour’s clueless “strategists” stop pandering to him.
Michael Rundell
Deal, Kent
I am not convinced Reform have staying power. They will be fine as long as events go in their favour. But politics can and does change without warning.
Apart from ranting about the immigration issue, what does Reform really have to knit it together? Their economic policies are similar to those of Liz Truss and unlikely to appeal to ordinary voters. Vague rants about “woke” attract some people, but no one really can define what it means.
In the end I think Reform will founder when it comes to creating a network of local branches. That is hard to get going and takes years to become effective.
Having been involved myself in building up a Liberal Democrat local party, something Farage seems to want to copy, I can say it is hard graft and years of pounding the streets campaigning. I suggest your average Reform wannabe may not be up to it.
It is all right when you are enjoying an opinion poll surge, but those never last, and the strength of your organisation depends on surviving difficult times. You cannot sustain a political party purely on hot air. It just does not work.
David Rolfe
There is no chance that Nigel Farage and Reform will win the 2029 election.
Farage and the Reform MPs are second-raters. Even if they take their recruitment seriously, it will mean nothing when third-raters are in charge of that process. A $100m donation from Elon Musk would for sure boost Reform, but it would split the right wing vote, not be “transformative”. This would be the equivalent of the left wing vote being split between Labour and the Lib Dems, which has boosted the Tories since 1945.
Andrew Napier
Southampton
Alastair Campbell’s comment (Diary, TNE #416) that he sees Nigel Farage as “having a certain charm… he is a good gossip and raconteur” reminded me of the Franz Liebkind quote from The Producers: “Hitler, there was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!”
I am one of an ever-decreasing number of Jews born in this country straight after the Holocaust. My parents came to the UK in the 1940s as part of the invasion of “German Jews pouring into this country”, as the Daily Mail put it.
My paternal grandparents, believing that the German people would soon get sick and tired of Hitler, attempted to stay in their Osnabrück home until they were forced on to a transport and taken to Auschwitz, where they perished.
Just as Hitler deliberately appealed to the young via the Hitler Youth, Nigel Farage is currently targeting young people – especially young men, via TikTok and other platforms. He cites Andrew Tate as an important influencer.
He clearly hopes to build up a youth wing of supporters and voters who will get behind him in his stated bid to be the next PM, and can be utilised in any future campaigns.
In researching my own family history in order to get “restored” German citizenship post Brexit, I discovered that the individuals freed from any constraint by the new race laws who threw stones and bricks at my grandparents’ home, shouting “Go to Palestine” as they broke their windows, were all students from local schools.
Carol Hedges
Antisocial media
In Dilettante (TNE #417), Marie Le Conte wrote: “2024 has been the year in which many big things went wrong; perhaps 2025 can be the one where we get the small things right, together.”
You can only control the controllable. I came off social media in May. I have never looked back or missed it. I now decide when I want to be outraged, educated or humoured.
Marie is right. Trump 2.0 with Musk will be a frenzy of attention-seeking designed to offend the more liberal among us. Let’s remove their power by ignoring them in 2025.
Instead, enjoy the simple things in life – walks, chats, music, a movie and good food.
Denny Ford
Many thanks for a thoughtful piece which I suspect reflects many people’s feelings. Marie Le Conte gives voice to some important ideas that are too often drowned out.
Mike Sibly
Like Marie Le Conte, I detest going out in winter, especially after dusk. The weather in the winter months is rarely clement, and I feel the cold more than some.
However, once the effort has been made, the “small pleasures” do indeed make an excursion more pleasurable. Thanks Marie for reminding us never to underestimate the smile and quick chats with friends, neighbours and passing strangers.
Sue Lloyd
Fighting Putin
Matthew d’Ancona is quite right in “We were always going to betray Ukraine” (TNE #417).
Those who baulk at the cost of supporting Ukraine should think about the cost of not supporting Ukraine. An emboldened Putin will result in far more defence spending in western Europe than a defeated Putin.
RS Prior
I always think back to that Zelensky speech where he said the time had come to defeat Russia using Ukrainian lives, in order to save ourselves from having to expend our own later on. The Trumpification of American politics and the timidity of western Europe have a lot to answer for.
Christopher W.
Single market stall
I enjoyed reading Jonty Bloom’s article on a year of Brexit magical thinking (TNE #417). He is absolutely correct in saying that the threat of Donald Trump makes our situation perilous.
I do not understand why Rachel Reeves cannot grasp the significance of joining the customs union and the single market. Were we to make this link, prices would fall in the shops and food would be cheaper, thus reducing the rate of inflation.
We should also rejoin the Erasmus scheme to benefit our universities. When I taught in the European School of Brussels, we sent many students to British universities. It may well be possible to negotiate the kind of freedom of movement enjoyed by Norwegians so that we can take continental holidays unimpeded by visa requirements.
The boost to the government’s popularity from such changes would be impressive, and 2025 ought to be the year when this happens.
David Hogg
North Somerset
Even if we got a trade deal with the USA, what’s to stop Trump the next week from having a spat with Starmer and tearing it up again?
Keith Hobbs
Because the majority of the media backs the Tories, only the Tories will be allowed to take us back into the EU – because only then will the media back a Rejoin agenda.
So that will start in about 20 years, then it will take another 20 years to get back in. I guess I won’t be around then, being 60 now. Johnson and Farage, also 60 now, won’t be either.
Paul Nugent
Jonty Bloom alone repays my TNE subs 10 times over. Keep sticking it to the priapic flouncer Nigel Farage and his lying mates in the client media.
John Price
BELOW THE LINE
John Kampfner’s articles are always a rewarding read. “How Volkswagen stalled” (TNE #417) was no exception. The introductory and concluding sentences (“Everyone who lives in Germany competes with their stories of bureaucracy”; “If they embrace change, don’t bet against them”) go right to the very heart of Germany’s economic problems.
Eric Owen Smith
Surely Joe Biden is the biggest loser in Alastair Campbell’s winners and losers (TNE #417)? If he’d kept to being a one-term president saving the world from a Trump second term, he’d for ever be regarded as a hero. Instead, he went on: stitched up the Democrats and then pardoned his son so again going back on his word. From hero to zero in six months.
Charles Bradshaw-Smith
I confess to being frankly amazed that Alastair Campbell didn’t include Palestinians living in Lebanon in his losers column. They were very real losers, constantly on the receiving end of Israel’s illegal policies with thousands of women and children killed. Surely few lost as much as the Palestinian people in 2024?
Laurence Todd
What Philip Ball reports about AI in Critical Mass (TNE #417) is truly exciting and has huge potential to address long-standing diseases. What is required is an ethical approach to governance that ensures capturing and being transparent about the rules and decision-making. This is part of the process of establishing trust and keeping it going in the general population so we can continue to take benefit from what AI delivers.
Angela Preece
Re: Rats in a Sack on the BBC’s internal ban on the word “talent” (TNE #416). In the decades I spent in the media, those of us who actually did the hard work without any hissy fits called those in front of the camera “luvvies”. Why doesn’t the BBC just use this term?
Richard Riddle
