Thoughts on Reform's new chairman?

Focusing just for the present on Reform's policies on immigration - summarised above - I see very little that is at odds with what the Conservatives, say, have proposed since Brexit.

I simply don't see the alternative approach that you are ascribing to Reform. Take for example the 'Four Point Plan to Stop the Boats', which the 'Contract' sets out in full:

"Leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Zero illegal immigrants to be resettled in the UK.
New Department of Immigration. Pick up illegal
migrants out of boats and take them back to France."

Apart from the last one, which everybody recognises is an impossible pipedream, which of the rest have not been proposed already even if only as a kite-flying exercise? Only to founder on the reefs of the aforementioned obstacles.

Who is to say that Reform would not follow the Japanese model?. 

You cannot criticise someone for failing if they were not in a position to implement their policies - you are just being daft now.

So they're appeasing the Left?

Well, the first thing it does is bugger the 'we're just a bunch of white racists' claim so beloved of Diane Abbott

But the reality is I don't quite know what to make of it

Let's just stop and take in a few bits of history

Back in 2009 UKIP were a right bunch of weirdos who were lucky if they could get half as many votes as the BNP. Yes Really.

Nigel had the entertaining (for me anyway) job of explaining why the former BNP and indeed former National Front chappie walking arm in arm pretty much, along some sea front pier with him, rosette on lapel, was allowed to be a member, and a candidate in the constituency, when they had just changed the rules to say former BNP members could not be UKIP members.

The reason Nigel gave was that he became a member before the rules changed.

Nigel abandoned UKIP and left it to be destroyed through implosion when it fell into the hands of Neil Hamilton who some insane arse hole allowed to become first a member and then a candidate in the largely Tory area of Pembrokeshire.

Nigel set up the Brexit party now Reform UK as a limited company. I swear the original intent was to set up a company limited by Guarantee like Andy White set up the PCG, a company with no shareholders to benefit from the profits if any. I say that because long before it was created I had sight of documents in the hands of a bloke later close to the Leave campaign that suggested this as a way to create a controlling organisation that then ran a political party, but clearly that was not what they did in the end.

Instead, Farage and friends created a Limited Company with the absolute minimum of directors and secretarial posts as required by law, and set it as the administrative body having oversight of and control of all aspects of the party.

One could be a SUPPORTER of the Brexit Party for the princely sum of £25 a year, but unlike every other political party this gave you nothing other than a warm feeling. There were no members, no constituency parties, no candidate selection committees and no way for a supporter to engage in the process of deciding a candidate never mind be one.

For those on here who do not know, the Electoral Commission require every political party registered with them and thus able to stand candidates to nominate and register with the commission a National Nominating Officer. No candidate may represent themselves as standing in any UK election under the banner of a particular party unless their nomination in the constituency is supported by a firm signed by that nominating officer. They have other roles particularly in devolved government but for this thread this is the role that matters.

No one whether Tory, Labour, Rabid nutter or whatever may stand on a party ticket unless they approve it.

And faced with UKIP having a while load of dodgy people in the party as members and able to.select and put forward candidates, Nigel chose to ensure no one could do that for his new baby

The only way a Brexit Party candidate could stand as a Brexit party candidate is if the board members of the limited company formally recorded in the minutes of a directors meeting an agreement to the National Nominating Officer to support such and such a person as the party candidate for wherever.

And that mechanism was retained by the company when the party changed it's name. Farage and con made all sorts of whiny noises that unsuitable candidates had slipped in because a company vetting them had failed, but he set up the limited company structure to give him utter and total control of who stood where, and so every dodgy candidate is legally his problem


So he has unwound the structure and set about a process intended to turn the party into a regularised entity following the example of all the others.

I don't know what to make of this upstart

Probably a Tory plant instructed to derail the party at the 2026 Welsh Assembly elections

Well let's just put down what he actually said shall we

He admits not holding face to face meetings with his constituents. He points out quite correctly that two MPs who held meetings of that nature were killed by constituents who arrived armed and with premeditated intent to carry out that act and he again quite correctly asserts that he has a far higher profile than any of them.

Just out of interest, when did you last meet your MP

When did you last contact them and receive an answer from them

The one and only time I ever met my MP was when at the age of 17 he arranged coaches for any about-to-become-voters who expressed an interest to come to London to see inside the Palace of Westminster.

I had several communications with my MP between 1995 and 2005 which received a response

I saw my former MP at a secondary school record of achievement day

But since 2005 any attempt to contact my MP has been deflected by a paid (or possibly unpaid) intern whose job it is to make sure constituents trying to contact their MP fail in their quest

So your attempt to smear Farage by saying he won't hold face to face meetings doesn't seem terribly impressive