“Net Zero is killing British jobs, killing British communities…and it’s killing the economy.” the Reform UK leader says.
But Tory Democracy has triumphed for much of our history since Disraeli, and can before long be expected to triumph again.
On the face of it, the plight of the Government today is much, much worse than was David Cameron’s in 2014. Yet few people can think that Reform UK poses anything like the threat to the Tories that UKIP did ten years ago.
Anderson has responded to Rishi Sunak’s suspension of the whip – opposed by almost two-thirds of our panel – by becoming Reform UK’s first MP.
The ex-Labour councillor and Tory MP will become Richard Tice’s “Champion of the Red Wall”.
The leadership may lack the vision and courage to exploit the Tories’ weaknesses, but they make it very hard for a hungrier, savvier party to do so.
Farage is 59 – a rubbery, ebullient 59, but 59 nonetheless. Does he really fancy a decade’s prospective work to recast the right, with no certainty of elected office at the end of it?
The channel will help to shape Tory members’ take on the general election, the Conservatives, Reform UK, Farage, post-election debate…and, not least, America’s own election, Trump and Biden.
With both Labour and the Conservatives committed in practice to importing hundreds of thousands of people a year, there is scope for a minor party to harness deep public concern about the status quo.
Tice adds that “no cash has been offered. What has offered is a chance to change the shape of the debate.”
I will be looking to introduce a Private Member’s Bill to guarantee our rights to bank accounts. If I cannot get the time for that, I will be looking to amend the first relevant Bill that goes through the Commons.
His greatest success was to make the Conservatives more conservative, but he does not have the gifts needed to sustain a rival party.
Without him, the disaffected right lacks the profile, the programme, or the machine to capitalise on the Conservatives’ weaknesses.
Such votes as there are to the Conservatives’ right at the next election will coalesce around the Perennial Pretender, under whatever standard, or not at all.
We spoke to 2019 Conservatives who put their chances of voting Tory again at less than five out of ten – the people the party will need to win back if it is to recover ground before the election.