Does Goodwin have the goods?

Speaking at a National Conservatism conference in Brussels, Matt Goodwin remarked:

"We have a new party called the Reform Party which is doing well in the polls and some of their ideas are good ideas but they too have fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. People in Britain don't just want to reform the system they want to smash the system they want to build a completely different kind of politics that is much more representative of their values of their voice and how they see their country. That means building something that speaks above and beyond the 20% of disillusioned conservatives."

This speaks to much of what I've been saying. The Reform Party is inadequate and is unlikely to break out of its populist cul de sac. There is an inherent electoral ceiling to generic right wing populism, and I actually think it tops out at about 14% because a great many voters will be spooked at the prospect of a Labour government and will reluctantly vote Tory, or just not vote at all.

The latest Ipsos Political Monitor, taken 3rd to 15th April 2024, has it that Reform UK are at a record high of 13%, although not quite yet at the heights of UKIP or the Brexit Party who reached 16 per cent in October 2014 and May 2019 respectively. This again suggests zero seats for Reform.

This suggests to me that Reform has hit its ceiling. Populism only gets you so far. The Tories managed to win by a landslide in 2019 even with BXP in the game at 16%. With so much ill will towards the Tories and no risk of Corbyn, Reform should be picking up the Tory deserters. Reform is evidently not presenting as a serious contender.

Goodwin says "What do we need to is build an entirely new political movement that is outside of the traditional left and right. We need to build a movement that pitches above and beyond Labour and the Conservatives. We need to reject the broken two-party system and we need to stop using the language of that system". (Not exactly original)

He goes on to say "so what started with Brexit eight years ago, I'm here to tell you is only just the beginning of a much broader political revolution in our country". "if you're interested in following that Revolution or even, dare I say, supporting that Revolution, please find me in the break"

So he's up to something. I would point out that it wouldn't have been necessary to start a new project if Reform had bothered to properly diagnose the problem, define what it actually believes in, and developed coherent policies and ideas to campaign on.

Because it didn't, though Reform may give voters an outlet to give the Tories a bloody nose, whatever Goodwin starts up will position itself as a successor to Reform. It will soak up much of the media attention as the media is dazzled by a shiny new thing. They're desperate for something new to talk about, and they're not interested in Richard Tice.

This is perhaps why Farage is hedging his bets and wants in on the ground floor of whatever Goodwin has in mind. Goodwin should be cautious in that Farage brings all his baggage with him, and his presence does more to define a movement in the eyes of the media than anything else, and risks becoming the fourth incarnation of the Farage personality cult. If any successor movement wants to establish an independent reputation, it would do well not to share the same stage as Farage.

But then any new movement is not entitled to be the leader of the insurgency. Reform will then be a direct competitor (among a number of others). Goodwin risks further fragmentation. Goodwin is also not the first to attempt to square this circle. The SDP also believes the answer is to be left leaning on economics and right leaning on culture. They too have struggled to bring coherence to this equation.

Meanwhile, I do have to wonder what this broad appeal entity would possibly be when Goodwin is hanging out with Braverman and Truss et al. One thing Goodwin will not succeed at is uniting the dissenters because nobody ever has and nobody will. It's just not going to happen. There are far too many egos in play.

I also have a hunch that whatever Goodwin is cooking up will flop for the same reason as Reform. He says we need to build a movement that pitches above and beyond Labour and the Conservatives. I don't think he or any of his associates knows how to give form to that. I don't want to pre-empt here, but if this means yet another manifesto of half-baked policy tropes then it's already stillborn. He's looking at polling data and attempting to triangulate. It won't work. That's not how you do politics.

It really depends if he has understood what he's actually saying. They very often mouth the platitudes but it seldom translates into activity. He says "People in Britain don't just want to reform the system they want to smash the system they want to build a completely different kind of politics". It is for him to define what that actually looks like.

This is where Reform failed in that they called themselves Reform, but have no real constitutional reforms in mind. The allude to PR and Lords reform, but that doesn't give rise to a new politics. At best, it's marginal tinkering.

I maintain that any movement has to define its core philosophy and develop policies in service of that philosophy, and not immediately worry about exposure and popularity. You build a core of competent people who understand the philosophy and the mission, then you hit the road and build a movement around it. There are no shortcuts.

For an establishment insider like Goodwin, it is well within his abilities to set up a front organisation and a website, and have a big high profile launch, attracting some donors and maybe even a few heavyweight supporters, which in turn creates a large subscriber base. But this is little different to what Reform has done, and it remains a virtual entity with no political soul.

There's a certain "underpants gnomes" dynamic in the way that the insurgency keeps reinventing itself and then growing stale. In five years we'll probably see yet another new organisation launching, parroting the same shtick, and promoted by the same old gang dissident conservatives and Tory hasbeens.

I'll be happy to eat my words if Goodwin is the real deal, but I'll know pretty soon if he isn't. Everything comes down to having a core philosophy and a plan, the absence of which is why Brexit failed, and why Ukip, BXP and Reform will end up in the graveyard of insurgent parties. I'm not hopeful, to be honest.