A Bad Word on the Brown Acid

Ben Wildsmith

The Stones at Hyde Park, The Beatles at Shea Stadium, Nigel in Trago Mills car park; these iconic events come along so rarely, and I missed it again.

Despite unkind comments on social media, ‘There were more people watching the horse racing in The Winch’ (Dial M For Merthyr), friendly journalists were quick to trumpet the ‘festival atmosphere’ at Reform UK’s version of Coachella (Nigella?) which, apparently, featured ‘wrist bands and a pizza van’.

Whether the £5 ticket price granted entry into a VIP area packed with cottagecore influencers from Troed-y-rhiw isn’t clear, but the presence of Dan ‘The Rizz’ Thomas was glamour enough to offset any fears that the A470-adjacent venue might not match up to the Empire Polo Club in California.

Dan Dan the Valleys Man found his way to Merthyr from his Valleys home in the Valleys where he grew up in the Valleys and provided the quote of the afternoon by confirming that Reform’s new absolutely serious policy of siting immigrant removal centres in Green Party constituencies would also extend to those where people vote for Plaid Cymru. Ahhhhh, the spirit of Woodstock is alive.

This idea was announced a couple of days ago by Reform’s Zia Yusuf, in a piece to camera striding along Brighton beach in a Gieves & Hawkes suit and Wayfarer sunglasses – such as you commonly see sported around Penrhiwceiber when the trading floor opens.

It’s this common touch that has inspired so many of us ‘tune in, turn on, and drop out’ of Senedd conformity in favour of Lee Anderson’s heavy groove and the witchy charms of the movement’s Anita Pallenberg – Ann Widdecombe.

Jesus, I can’t keep this up.

In these brief moments before Reform starts claiming that the election was stolen, stitched-up, or irrelevant, let’s drill down a bit into this immigrant removal centre thing. As they expect us to take this kind of tripe seriously, what happens if we do?

Well, the day before Nigellafest, Reform was approached as to how they intended to site these centres in Scotland’s Green constituencies in defiance of the Scottish Government. Reform responded that if consent was not granted it would amend legislation to override the Scottish Parliament.

As the pizza van was being packed away in Merthyr yesterday, Dan Thomas was asked whether this would extend to Plaid-run areas, and he confirmed that kit would.

Morality

Now, we’ll touch on the morality of this in a bit, but where does this leave Reform voters in Plaid constituencies? Their reward for Reform’s UK success would be the siting of immigration centres in their vicinity that would be paced there purely as a tool of political coercion and punishment.

Boris Johnson’s ruse of setting ‘red wall’ constituencies against each other to compete for levelling-up funds (vote Tory or the constituency next door gets the loot) has been transformed from bribery to a protection racket. The nod-and-a-wink ‘we’re just owning the lefties’ frivolity of this announcement can’t be waved away as a trivial publicity stunt. Behind it lie two deadly serious foundations upon which a Reform government in Westminster would be built.

• Immigrants would not just be treated as lesser but dehumanised altogether. ‘So-called asylum seekers’, as Dan Thomas had them, or ‘illegals’ would be moved around on political whims, treated as a collective ill, and used as a threat against citizens who disagree with the government.
• Devolution would be over. The blithe admission that the will of the Scottish Parliament would simply be overridden by legislation in Westminster confirms that Holyrood, Stormont, and our Senedd would become meaningless the moment that Nigel Farage walked into Downing Street,

There is much to laugh at in Reform UK’s antics. Personally, I’d sink into despair if I relinquished the facility to find the funny in their vulgarity, dishonesty, and transparent opportunism.

It’s a relief from their constant presence, the relentlessness of their thudding, juvenile assault on anything requiring thought or nuance.

Nasty

Once relieved, though, decent people have to get serious about this because these are proper nasty bastards who are funded to the gills and preparing to tear down everything that defines us. This perversion of politics relies on despair to thrive.

However Wales is run next week, those governing need to rise to this moment’s urgency. Any hesitation in demonstrably addressing the despondency in so many of our communities will see their mandate evaporate into a Starmeresque miasma of vitriolic rejection.

Business as usual will lead to no business at all for the Senedd.