Reform – a challenge to all parties in the Senedd
Mike Hedges – MS for Swansea East
In the last 50 years we have had three parties created that had substantial success in the opinion polls although not winning large number of seats at general elections. The three are the SDP, UKIP and now Reform.
There have been other short lived and unsuccessful political parties in the UK. The list includes The Independent Group, Renew, Natural Law Party and the Christian Party.
Change UK, founded as The Independent Group and later The Independent Group for Change, was a British centrist, pro–European Union political party, which lasted for ten months in 2019.
Established in February and formally recognised as a party in May, it was dissolved in December after all its MPs lost their seats at that year’s general.
Poisonous
Renew was created and can be described as its heir apparent: a pro-Europe centrist party set up following the EU referendum in order to ‘tackle the UK’s poisonous political culture head on.’
The Natural Law Party is a transnational party founded in 1992 and fought elections in the UK based on “the principles of Transcendental Meditation”, the laws of nature, and their application to all levels of government.
The party defines “natural law” as the organizing intelligence which governs the natural universe.
The Natural Law Party advocates using the Transcendental Meditation technique and the TM-Sidhi program as tools to enliven natural law and reduce or eliminate problems in society
Airtime
Christian Party originated as Operation Christian Vote was founded by George Hargreaves, a Pentecostal minister and former songwriter, in 2004. It has fought a number of seats at parliamentary, council, and European elections.
What differentiates the SDP, UKIP, and Reform from the other mainly short-lived political parties? The major difference is uncritical airtime on the main TV and radio channels. Interviewers avoid asking the type of questions that Labour and Conservative politicians regularly face.
The “we are different to the main parties”, the campaign slogan of third parties is uncontested. The standard questions faced by Labour and Conservative politicians of “how will you fund your promises” and “how will you achieve your aims” remain unasked. Instead, they are treated as a vox pop not as a political party.
Disruptive
The SDP took votes disproportionately from Labour with UKIP and Reform taking votes disproportionately from the Conservatives. Disruptive parties take votes off all parties and in one election for example 1983 Labour was badly affected by the SDP and in 2024 the Conservatives were badly affected by Reform. The SDP, UKIP and Reform took votes off both Labour and Conservatives as well as enthusing some traditional non-voters and third party voters.
Reform starts by saying, “You are worse off, both financially and culturally. Wages are stagnant, we have a housing crisis, our young people struggle to get on the property ladder, we have rising crime, energy bills are some of the highest in Europe, the NHS isn’t working, both legal and illegal immigration are at record levels and woke ideology has captured our public institutions and schools.”
Reform then says, “We will freeze immigration and stop the boats. Restore law and order. Repair our broken public services. Cut taxes to make work pay. End government waste. Slash energy bills. Unlock real economic growth.”
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives would get away with making those statements unchallenged. The contradiction between reducing taxes and improving public services remains uncontested.
‘Outsider’
Nigel Farage was educated at a public school, is the son of a stockbroker, he worked as a commodity trader at the London metal exchange. I am not sure how much more establishment he could be yet continually the media allow him to describe himself as an outsider.
In 2016 I wrote the following regarding UKIP: “Why did former Labour voters vote for a right-wing party with a former right-wing Tory Leadership?” I said UKIP had a simple message: “Leave the EU, end immigration and everything will be alright.”
Many voters suffered from a difficulty of getting social housing “either personally or for family members”, a lack of employment prospects, zero hour or very few guaranteed hours contracts and “debt or the fear of debt”.
I highlighted the need to “build council and other social housing” to reduce housing pressure and support the “real” living wage which is higher than the UK government national living wage.
What do most people want? A nice house, a job, adequate pay, no fear of debt and opportunities for their family. We need to address these desires in the language of the electorate who we are trying to communicate with.
Nine years later the above is still true. The challenge for Governments is to address these issues, make people feel better off and to provide adequate housing.
As we start the build up to the next Senedd election, will Reform be questioned on its policies or will the media still accept unverified statements and assertions without asking how they will achieve their aims?
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
It will be interesting to see if the culture of the American far right reflected by Reform makes significant inroads in Wales. Low taxes only really benefit the rich. Caveat Emptor.
they differ from the Americans. Reform will offer to increase the bottom income tax threshold, reduce small business rates, corporation rates. How they pay for it is anyone’s guess. They’ll probably say cut number of politicians and executive pay in the public sector. They are actually quite in tune with labour type voters
‘What differentiates the SDP, UKIP, and Reform from the other mainly short-lived political parties?’ What differentiates Reform UK right now – the SDP barely exists these days and UKIP was just Reform’s earlier incarnation – is that they’re headed up by a leader who has been pretty much the UK’s most effective political communicator in recent years. The evidence for that being that public interest in and support for the Farageists, under their various successive names, swiftly slumped each time Farage chose to step back from the leadership. If, for whatever reason, he ceased to front Reform, the party would… Read more »
The SDP is no longer prevalent as it joined the Liberals to become the Liberal Democrats.
That doesn’t mean they disappeared entirely:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK,_1990%E2%80%93present)
Most of them, but not all. That wasn’t a road favoured by David Owen and his followers, though I readily acknowledge that they were hardly a numerically significant faction.
The SDP are still around and haven’t gone away.Yet these days they are far removed from the days of Dr David Owen and Roy Jenkins.
The current SDP supported Brexit, have a hard line on immigration and want to leave the ECHR.
As for UKIP,yes they went into decline after Nigel left them but recently there has been an upsurge in membership under its current leader Nick Tenconi.
Check out Nick on UKIPs YouTube channel.I am not saying that you have to agree or disagree with him but his posts are interesting to say the least.
‘The current SDP supported Brexit, have a hard line on immigration and want to leave the ECHR.’
I didn’t know that. I don’t recall hearing anything about them for many a long year.
I wasn’t aware of any of that either.
But I’m not sure that either the SDP in its present incarnation or the relic of UKIP sans Farage are especially relevant to the present condition of our politics.
The media loves Farage but rarely questions him. The people in the audience of Question Time have given him a bigger grilling. We all have the democratic right to know the ins and outs of Reform and not just the pint wielding, pub dwelling, ‘I’m one of you’ character enacted by Farage. The media has a responsibility to seek out and show us Reform, warts and all.
If a section of the Welsh electorate stopped voting for Ukip and Brexit Party, why then trust Reform UK that has the very same hierarchy and leader Nigel Farage. Less we forget , he led that disastrous Brexit referendum, lied about putting the £350 million per day paid to the EU into the NHS, not to mention other factors like red tape that has made Wales less competitive and poorer. The only one to benefit from Brexit it seems is Nigel Farage not Wales. Nothing positive has come out of leaving the EU thanks to the lies told by the… Read more »
Conservatives had 14 years in power did nothing about the small boats.
Conservatives had 25 years in opposition in Wales and just sat back and bellyached without really doing anything.Now Reform has come along and shaken you lot up you are quaking in your boots because you may lose your cosy seats…You only have yourselves to blame.
The £350M was the amount paid weekly to the EU, not daily, apart from that you are correct in your comments.
Reform pledges to slash energy bills yet rejects the cheapest energy sources, such as wind and solar, preferring costly options like nuclear power and fracking. Another Farrage fantasy is to pretend that man made climate change, which is fuelling flooding and other weather extremes that hit the poorest the hardest, is not happening. It’s as idiotic as claiming that cigarette smoking does not harm health.
People will vote for Reform out of desperation for change. It will be a vote against the two main parties who have presided over a failing economy and a crumbling infrastructure rather than a vote for Reform. A vote for Labour or the Tories right now is a vote for a failing NHS, failing housing provision, failing public transport system, polluted waterways, high energy costs and so on. Who would vote for that.
What are Reform’s plans for the NHS?
That might scare quite a few would-be voters.
You’d best get your direct debit to “Aaron Banks Medical Insurance” set up sooner rather than later.
Read my post. I am not in favour of Reform or private medicine, far from it. My point is that despite having few known policies people could vote for Reform as a protest against the failure of current politicians both Labour and Tory.