All out war and no dog in the fight

Looking at the noise on X, Restore and Reform supporters are at each other’s throats. This is basically a civil war on the insurgent right. Now a long established tradition where Farage-led enterprises are concerned - but one could easily conclude this is more to do with Rupert Lowe’s vendetta. There’s already some furious exchanges between key Restore figures and Matt Goodwin which aren’t doing either side any favours:

In response, Goodwin says:

If your answer to what I said is “I want to throw British Sikhs who believe in Britain out of Britain” then, yes, we are very different. It is not “establishment” to build a broad coalition of people who reject mass immigration, woke ideology, broken borders and the Uniparty, who contribute to our community and want to prioritise Britain.

Brexit, for example, would never have happened without that broad coalition. 1 in 3 of the people who you presumably want to deport voted for our national sovereignty and to end mass immigration. You and many Restore people around you appear to be advocating blatant racism, calling to not just deport illegal migrants and foreign criminals (which is Reform policy) but throw out settled Brits who work hard, pay taxes, and play by the rules. I do not want any part in that. That is not my politics.

When I said “it takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody British” I was referring to the emotional bond to our nation that Islamists, terrorists, grooming gang members & foreign criminals reject.

Those people should be removed from our society or their lives should be made very very difficult. This is why Reform call to slash welfare for non-Brits, including social housing. But many minority Brits who have spent their entire lives in Britain or much of their lives here feel this bond and are contributing. I know this because they are here with me, campaigning side by side, to overturn an area held by Labour for 100 years. I find your language and the language of people around Restore sloppy and ill-defined.

I believe, based on 20 years of actually talking to voters, that the British people will look at you and say “no thanks” in about 5 seconds. Your ecosystem is riddled with white supremacists, antisemites, racists and conspiracy theorists.

Path dependency matters in politics. From where you start determines your eventual outcome. You are starting from the wrong place. That is obvious to everybody who has a basic understanding of our country’s political culture.

I also find it significant that I have seen more minority Brits who feel that bond to Britain helping me win Gorton & Denton than pro-Restore people who are helping the rotten establishment either by standing rival candidates or doing absolutely nothing at all to help. Sitting online and thinking they are changing the world when they are doing no such thing. Nobody in Britain has heard of you. That is the blunt reality.

It is also rather sad to watch so many young people waste their time and energy and be thrown down rabbit holes by people who I suspect are driven more by their dislike of other leaders than a serious assessment of political reality. From where I am sat, what you are doing looks like a direct re-run of what the National Front attempted in 1979, which your leader will remember.

0.6%.

I suspect Lowe might hold his seat but in the end it will be a monumental waste of energy, money, and effort that will only serve to enable the Left. And that is how you will all, in the end, be remembered. It is not the smart move. On the contrary, it is very very dumb. I have to get back to canvassing now rather than sitting on social media thinking clicks matter. This is all I will say on the matter.

This prompts a somewhat terse reply from Rupert Lowe.

I have no strong feelings about Goodwin either way. He is on occasion very eloquent and sensible, and then there are other times when it just looks like he's a careerist who will say anything to secure his future meal ticket. In this instance, I can quibble with much of what Goodwin has said but the key part is this:

--"I find your language and the language of people around Restore sloppy and ill-defined. I believe, based on 20 years of actually talking to voters, that the British people will look at you and say “no thanks” in about 5 seconds. Your ecosystem is riddled with white supremacists, antisemites, racists and conspiracy theorists. Path dependency matters in politics. From where you start determines your eventual outcome. You are starting from the wrong place. That is obvious to everybody who has a basic understanding of our country’s political culture."--

Much of this applies in equal measure to Reform. To date, I still don't really know the precise definitions of Reform, and while Goodwin can assert what he believes party policy is, there is little in the way of formal policy, and nothing trustworthy since Farage is prone to binning policy on the fly. As such, Reform is basically a slop populism party with Tory leanings.

But that in itself is an example of the dynamic Goodwin speaks of. Path dependency matters in politics. From where you start determines your eventual outcome. And the outcome of starting on a vague populist platform: A major split on the insurgent right.

Restore, meanwhile, has made this same basic error. The Restore ecosystem very much is riddled with white supremacists, antisemites, racists and conspiracy theorists - precisely because of the lack of party definition and policy - and the longer it goes unaddressed, the more likely that splits will open up inside whatever Lowe builds. The faultlines are already there. Lowe thinks it's enough to keep reiterating vague policy stances on X. It isn't. It wasn't good enough for Reform and it isn't good enough for Restore.

This is why structured thinking and preparation matters - and Lowe, like his nemesis, thinks these things are superfluous. That's why Restore will crash and burn on take-off. Attitudinally, Farage and Lowe are peas in a pod. Both have built their castles on foundations of sand.