Perhaps Kemi Badenoch was right all along. Since becoming leader of the Conservatives, she has been too busy having a lie-in and playing games on her phone to pro-actively attack the insurgent right-populist party that has surpassed her in the polls. The tactic seems to be to ignore Reform and any polling surge or electoral success they may have, until the inevitable happens and the party implodes all on its own. Going by the news of the last week, Badenoch’s approach has been completely vindicated.
A bust-up between Reform leader Nigel Farage and the increasingly popular Parliamentary newbie Rupert Lowe has long been predicted, with rumours of tensions circulating for months. Whilst a public falling out of some kind was to be expected, the viciousness and capriciousness with which Reform have gone after one of their most popular stars has been shocking.
The day after Lowe publicly undermined his leader by telling The Mail “It’s too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods”, the MP for Great Yarmouth was suspended from Reform due to allegations of misconduct following complaints by two female employees of bullying within his office. To really kick the boot in, Reform announced that “in addition to these allegations of a disturbing pattern of behaviour”, Lowe had been reported to the police for allegedly making threats of physical violence against party chairman Zia Yusef. Tellingly, the Metropolitan Police announced that they received the allegation against Lowe on Thursday, 6 March — the day Lowe’s critical comments were published in The Mail — for an incident that occurred in December last year. Reform therefore sat on this allegation for months, only lodging it with the police at this politically opportune moment.
Whatever the outcome of the investigations into Lowe, one internal and one criminal, this episode bodes terribly for Reform. If Lowe is found culpable, then it raises questions about what kind of people Reform is electing to Parliament (already a quarter of their current MPs have been convicted for violence against women). But more worryingly, if Lowe is exculpated, then it will show Reform to be a vicious circus willing to wreck its own reputation in order to assassinate the character of one of its own. Either way, Reform’s reputation is tarnished, possibly fatally.
The harm to Reform’s fortunes likely won’t be immediate, for whilst Lowe has a high online profile, he is still largely unknown by the electorate at-large. The headlines from the past few days declaring that Reform have lodged a police complaint into their own MP will undermine their attempts to come across as a serious party, potentially leading to a slight slump in the polls. But the real harm will come in the next few months and years, as attempts to grow the party and attract talent to fill top roles will yield pitiful results. For who would want to risk their professional and personal reputation to join an outfit that will kick you down and make mendacious reports to the police about you should you become too popular?
The kind of driven, talented, and professionally successful people Reform needs would be well advised to stay clear
As Lowe correctly identified, if Reform wishes to be successful and evolve beyond a one-time protest vote, the party needs to fill its ranks with high quality people. The moment is ripe for an insurgent party to sweep away the dead wood and act as a magnate for politically disaffected and talented people. The Tories are completely discredited, whilst hopes that Labour would radically rejuvenate the country have tanked as quickly as Starmer’s approval ratings. The frustration and desire on the part of many is there, but leaving behind a secure and successful career in business, academia, media or anywhere else vaguely prestigious to enter politics is an enormous gamble that can prove professionally fatal. The odds of success have to be good, and the Lowe fiasco suggests that putting yourself forward for Reform is a one-way ticket to trouble.
The kind of driven, talented, and professionally successful people Reform needs would be well advised to stay clear, for what is left of Reform now? A leader who over decades has repeatedly proven himself unable to work with anyone who is too competent or becomes vaguely popular. A deputy leader with an incredible talent for coming up with the least catchy slogans possible (I’m sure “Consocialists” will take off any day now). A chief whip who has become a living Boomer nostalgia Facebook page. And last and least, a convicted woman beater (or kicker, to be more accurate). Some line-up!
Reform will now have slim pickings as they assemble the thousands of candidates needed to contest local and eventually national elections. The selection may well come to comprise of, as David Cameron disparagingly said of Ukip, a cadre of “fruitcakes and loonies”. But Reform’s descent into fruitcakedom is one of their own making. The political space for a populist party to sweep aside the old guard has never been greater, and time was on Reform’s side. They could have quietly and competently expanded in the years running up to the 2029 general election, assembling a prodigious policy unit and convincing top quality candidates to stand. Instead, once again Farage’s ego has prevented his party from becoming anything greater than a one-man fan-club. In doing so, he has shot himself squarely in the face, ensuring that his repeated assertion that he is the Prime Minister-in-waiting will come to seem as ludicrous as when Jo Swinson similarly cast herself in that role. Meanwhile, the person set to benefit most from this self-inflicted fiasco will be Kemi Badenoch, who will no doubt be delighted once she wakes up to hear the news.
