Devil In The Detail

Ben Wildsmith

There’s a school of thought that we shouldn’t discuss Reform UK here. According to some on Facebook, any mention of the party or of Nigel Farage, no matter how critical, simply raises their profile in Cymru and helps them gain popularity.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t agree with that thesis, but I do think that the way journalists and voters discuss Reform UK must be alert to the rage-baiting tactics the party relies on to solidify its core support.

For people who take politics seriously, the dumb insolence of much of Reform’s output is difficult to take.

Racialised messaging and reductive appeals to ignore nuance in favour of ‘common sense’ are the bluntest tools in the political box. It is infuriating to watch people like Lee Anderson pretending to be plain-speaking and without guile when his intent, always, is to outrage and offend.

It as if the disruptive kid at school has decided to run for Class President solely to make a mockery of the election. The more upset we become, the happier he is, the gormless lump.

That analogy, though, doesn’t allow for the financial backing behind Reform UK and its media hinterland at GB News and sections of the print media.

Behind the provocative statements, English nationalism, and impossible pledges, lies the reality of the project, which is to usher in rapid deregulation of the economy and slash public services to the bone.

Thatcherite shakedown

You would think the British public could spot a Thatcherite shakedown after forty-five years of them, but it seems the bait & switch tactic still works if you throw in enough xenophobic dog whistles.

This week, we had a couple of illuminating contributions from the party, and each provides an insight into how those of us who seek to prevent its rise to power can counter its positions.

Firstly, we had Nigel Farage’s comments on the Welsh government’s target for increasing the number of Welsh speakers by 2050. Issues like this are where Reform can have us all dancing to their tune, if we are not careful.

The first thing to emphasise is that Farage could not care less about the language. It would be slightly bizarre, to be honest, if he did. But, lacking a Welsh leader, he needs traction here and thinks that this is an issue that divides people.

Here’s how his technique works. Having identified the issue, he makes an emotive statement about it. In this case, he made a claim about Cymraeg being ‘forced’ upon people. That guarantees him media attention and provokes outrage amongst people who care about the issue.

Whilst we are invoking the Welsh Not and generally expressing fury at his impudence, he’s calmness personified. Government targets don’t work; he tells us. We should encourage uptake of the language.

What he wants is for our outrage to back us into a corner where we find ourselves arguing that government targets do work, despite statistical evidence suggesting that they don’t.

Cynicism

He uses the same tactic time and again. The repugnance of Reform’s messaging about immigration, for instance, boxes its opponents into positions on the subject that allow for no misgivings at all. Again, Farage turns to his supporters and shrugs as the voice of reason.

The cynicism of all this is such that we need to be disciplined when discussing Reform’s activities in Wales and beyond. Making the moral case against them too often risks having the terms of political debate being drawn against our interests.

Instead, we should demand the commodity that Farage & Co. lack, which is detail. The soft underbelly of those remarks about the Welsh language wasn’t his deliberately insensitive and colonial attitude, but his lack of an actual policy. If the language is to be encouraged, how will that work? What strategies have Reform UK identified to effect this encouragement; who will head up the campaign; what are the projected costs?

Hollowness

Questions like these must be repeated and repeated again until the hollowness of what’s being offered is revealed.

His other contribution this week was to propose a £250k one-off tax for non-doms to settle their UK bill for ten years. Here is his real intent, and the reason for his party’s existence. The crass divisiveness of Farage’s media appearances is a Trojan horse for the asset-stripping, hard Thatcherism he seeks to impose on us all.

The broader the brush Farage brings to paint his disingenuous fantasies across our nation, the finer the pencil we should use to expose them.