Dear John,

Despite Nigel Farage’s claims about Reform UK becoming “professional,” his conference speech today was full of juvenile culture war fruitcakery. His fellow party members weren’t any better.

Farage assured attendees that the party is on a mission to “democratise and professionalise ([link removed]) ”, transforming from a dodgy privately controlled company into a more traditional political operation. He unveiled plans for a new local ground-game modelled on the Lib Dems, and claimed to be working on better candidate vetting procedures to ensure the the awkward mistakes ([link removed]) of the past don’t go repeated.

He claimed that he speaks for the “silent, decent majority of this country” (a classic authoritarian talking point) and that this political reinvention will help the party get their voices heard. He drew on people’s real frustrations about the two main political parties, but as usual, offered little in the way of tangible solutions.

Back here in reality, the majority of Britons actually hold negative views ([link removed]) of Reform UK. When he started ranting about “diversity, equity and inclusion”, parroting Trump’s nonsense culture war talking points from across the pond, it started to become clear why.

But Chairman Zia Yusuf’s claim that “we will see Nigel Farage at the podium of Downing Street” at the next election may be a dark premonition of what’s to come. Under First-Past-The-Post, a sweeping Farage victory is not an impossibility.

This desperate claim of legitimacy is an attempt to gloss over what we already know…that these are dangerous demagogues looking to benefit from a weakened political system, and they’re not concerned about who gets hurt in the process.

It’ll take a lot more than this thin gruel to persuade us that Reform is not an existential threat to our democracy.

All the best,

The Open Britain Team
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