Miriam Cates gets the Reform treatment

Yesterday, former Tory MP, Miriam Cates, treated us to an X thread detailing her experiences with Reform. I couldn’t let it pass without comment. She wrote…

Last week, I wrote for GB NEWS about the impressive success of Reform UK, but observed that a few challenges remain if the Party is serious about becoming a contender for government. The reaction was revealing!

Senior members of the Reform Party responded to the article and the reasonable questions it posed not with measured answers or attempts to explain, but with personal attack.

Andrea Jenkyn claimed that I am “part of the problem”. Richard Tice asked if I am a “real Conservative or a soggy one?” Zia Yousuf inexplicably said my questions amounted to a “bad faith” “tirade.”

Of course, Tice and the others are free to say whatever they want on social media, and their reactions were nothing if not revealing. But this response raises questions about the readiness of Reform to move from party of protest to serious contender for government.

The instinct was clearly to play the man not the ball, to characterise me as a ‘soft Tory’ acting in ‘bad faith’ & who has no right to ‘lecture’ them. This is a bizarre characterisation—I’m well known to be sympathetic to Reform and have very similar political views.

As a backbench MP, I frequently challenged & even opposed my own government on the issues that matter to Reform Party. I was one of just 11 Tory MPs to vote against Rwanda Bill because it didn’t commit to disregard ECHR. I was one of only 38 MPs to vote against ZEV mandate.

I exposed the appalling nature of what is being taught to children under the guise of ‘relationships education’ and secured a review of sex education in schools. While I am not a member of Reform, I am hardly a closet liberal.

If the first response of Reform’s key players to questions from a fellow traveller is personal attack, how will they respond to scrutiny from their political opponents? And even if I was an open borders liberal, would that make my questions any less valid?

On the substance of the response, Tice claimed “Reform’s philosophy is common sense & courage”. These are admirable attitudes but not philosophies. I’m no clearer on whether a Reform government would take a Thatcherite libertarian economic approach or Trumpian pro-nation one.

During the election Farage hit out at Starmer & Sunak, who he called “socialist twins”. Yet Reform’s manifesto’s commits to take 7m people out of paying tax altogether—those who make no contribution to our public services have every incentive to vote for socialist parties.

In the article, I remarked that Reform MPs have admirably taken a stand against “wokism” and asked whether the Party intends to repeal the Equality Act 2010, the Gender Recognition Act and the Human Rights Act if they gain power.

In his attack on me, Zia Yousuf claimed that I had ‘not done my research’ and that the answers to my questions lay in the Reform Manifesto. But Yousuf is incorrect. The manifesto makes no mention of the Gender Recognition Act or the Human Rights Act.

It does say that Reform would replace (not repeal) the ‘Equalities Act’ (I assume this is a typographical error as there is no ‘Equalities Act,’ a small but important mistake). But replace it with what?

And, while no one is expecting Reform or any other opposition party to have a fully developed legislative programme for government 4 years out from an election, it is nevertheless still legitimate to ask for more detail on how Reform intends to tackle institutional leftism.

The one question that none of the key players attempted to answer was over Reform’s relationship to Elon Musk. While I have enormous respect and admiration for Musk, there are good reasons why it is illegal for British political parties to accept foreign donations.

If we want Britain to be a sovereign nation, then the loyalties of our elected politicians & prime ministers must lie with Britain & the British people. Any politician who is beholden—or has the appearance of being beholden—to a foreign business or individual is compromised.

Despite Elon Musk’s admirable commitment to free speech and economic growth, any UK political party funded by him would have substantial conflicts of interests.

Under British law, X will soon have to ensure that children cannot see the enormous amount of pornography on its platform, and the company will be prosecuted if it fails to comply. Would a Musk-owned Reform feel compelled to campaign against age restrictions on social media?

Musk is not only super-rich, he is a senior member of the US government. While the UK is a close ally of the US, we don’t want to be a vassal state. For a UK government to be indebted to a senior US government official would erode British independence and sovereignty.

Speaking about the donations of George Soros to UK campaigns in 2018, Richard Tice said “he doesn’t live here, he doesn’t pay taxes here. What right has he got to interfere with our democracy?” Well said Richard.

Yet the only Reform response to my concerns regarding Musk was from Lee Anderson MP who, speaking to GB News’ Martin Daubney and Chris Hope last week claimed that I was raising concerns about Musk because of “sour grapes” since “I won and she lost”. Man not ball once more.

I offer this challenge to Reform as a critical friend. Britain’s establishment parties have failed us over the last forty years. The careless attitude of our elites to immigration, public debt and the value of our culture and heritage has left us in desperate need of change.

I’m an admirer of Nigel Farage and, as someone committed to Britain and our democracy, I welcome the disruption to decades of damaging liberal hegemony. Reform’s stance on immigration—and the fact of not being the Tories or Labour—will be enough to climb higher in the polls.

It might even be enough to win an election. But it won’t be sufficient to govern well & to implement the radical change that so many want to see. That will require better defined philosophical foundations, a more consistent policy platform.…and a perhaps a thicker skin.

The first thing to note is that attack is the first response of Reformers to criticism of any kind. It was much the same with Ukip and the subsequent referendum campaigns. The suggestion that those pressing fro Brexit should have some sort of plan was met with hostility and defensiveness. Nothing has changed. It’s a feature of any Farage-led enterprise.

Indeed my own lengthy criticisms of Reform (largely similar to those of Mrs Cates) have been met similar hostility. To Ben Habib’s credit, he was keen to meet me and discuss my points, but since Farage returned to the fore, the shutters have come down. Habib persisted with his efforts to reform the party and we know how that ended up.

Cates’s observations will have a familiar ring to readers of this Substack. She notes that Reform’s positions lack any detail, and what’s offered is cursory and threadbare. Much of it doesn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny, but when challenged, senior Reform figures are apparently entirely satisfied with their collection of recycled Brexit Party slogans set out in their “Contract with the People”.

Cates, rightly, observes that this does not inspire confidence. Reform is not in any position to form an effective government, and for as long as they reject any criticism, seeing no fault in their current approach, they’re never going to be.

One point of disagreement is where Cates says “no one is expecting Reform or any other opposition party to have a fully developed legislative programme for government 4 years out from an election”. As a matter of fact, I do expect them to have a fully developed prospectus. A party called Reform should at the very least have a blueprint for national reform.

As readers will know, I set out to prove the point that Reform has no excuses by writing a manifesto over summer. At forty-two thousand words, there is at least a template for any party to build on, and a party with considerable resources and access to talent should have no problem setting out a coherent policy framework.

Not only has Reform resisted any calls to develop policy, we can’t even be sure what Reform’s approach to immigration is. The rhetoric of Tice and Lowe is hardening, while Farage uses any and all opportunity to distance the party from the online Right. The party is still using the “net zero immigration” slogan, but that’s as far as it goes.

In closing, Cates calls for Reform to develop a philosophical foundation and a more consistent policy platform, but her words will fall on deaf ears. Ultimately, Reform is a populist party that will always triangulate its position in the moment, and will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid pinning down what it stands for. Populism depends on such agility.

To get the measure of Reform, then, we must simply go on vibes. That, though, depends very much on who is speaking, and on what subject matter. Reform is defined only by what it isn’t and what it loosely opposes.

Miriam Cates certainly isn’t the first to notice Reform’s inconsistency and its thin-skinned approach to criticism, and she won’t be the last. Given what happened to Ben Habib, though, nobody in the party will put their head above the parapet. As such, it is unlikely to address its shortcomings.

This, fundamentally, is all down to Farage’s leadership style. Nothing much has changed in twenty years. It remains a cult of personality and will remain a top-down organisation. Any notion that Reform is democratising is for the birds.

The danger for Reform is that those at the top of the party believe their own propaganda. This week, they’re crowing about imminently overtaking Tory party membership numbers and polls that place them ahead of the Tories. By the metrics that matter to Farage, not least his one million TikTok followers, the party need not heed like likes of Cate. Farage may seek to allay critics with soothing words but it will not translate into action.

With the stated aim of tapping into younger demographics, Farage may find that the adults begin to notice that Reform has nothing of substance to offer and no answers to complex and urgent questions. Whether Reform likes it or not, Miriam Cates is not wrong, and discerning voters are likely to notice. Reform has a proven track record in generating social media hype, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into votes. An incoherent populist party may not mobilise those voters staying at home.

In the wake of the Magdeburg attack, the Overton Window has shifted again this week. This has made AfD the front-runner for next year’s German elections. Should sentiment in Britain catch up, the Reform base may be looking for something a little more potent. If Farage won’t commit to mass deportations, positioning the party as a replacement Tory party, the next election could again see a low overall turnout, and the anticipated big breakthrough may not happen for Reform. If the party can’t, at least, be clear on its immigration policy at this point in time, voters may wonder what the point is. If Farage can’t tell us, who can?