No revival on the horizon for trainwreck Britain

I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your attention but this week there’s been a petition doing the rounds calling for a general election. At time of writing the number of signatories has reached two and a half million. I’m not sure that it means very much but it certainly adds to the general consensus that Keir Starmer’s government isn’t very popular. The Prime Minister is not making any friends for sure.

But then we expected as much. Labour did not come to power with a mandate to speak of, and only occupies Downing Street because right-leaning voters withdrew their consent to be further abused by the Tory party. Starmer was unlikely to enjoy a honeymoon and it was sure to be downhill from day one. And as expected, Starmer has, almost single-handedly, managed to make every acute crisis worse.

Notably, the decision to terminate the Rwanda deterrence policy (just as everyone else is considering it) has led to a record use of hotels to house asylum seekers, and the plan to “smash the gangs” shows no sign of working. Rachel Reeves isn’t riding high in the competence stakes either. Having promised no new taxes, “business leaders” are now saying Britain is “uninvestable”. As to our energy predicament, policy is in the hands of a certifiable lunatic.

We should also not forget that the truth about who knew what about the Southport killer has yet to come to light, and as yet, the thugs who attacked a female police office in Manchester airport have yet to be charged.

Along the way, Starmer has acquired several nicknames, none of them good. We’ve had Two-Tier Kier, Free Gear Kier, No Beer Kier, Starmer's Harmy Army (prisoners released early), Starmer The Farmer Harmer, and Starmer The Disarmer (following yet another round of defence cuts). This is a government mired in corruption and incompetence. There is every reason to call for a general election, and the fact we have no means of formally triggering one speaks to the inadequacy of our current model of democracy.

But then I have to remind people that, in any case, it would do no good. Back in April I was writing detailed critiques about the inadequacy of the Reform party, and when next April comes around I’ll end up writing more or less the same article. If Reform was ever going to get its act together we’d have seen some evidence of it by now.

It would appear that Nigel Farage has taken “professionalisation” to mean manicuring the party image and sanitising the party to win the respect of people who would never in a billion years vote for Reform. It seems these days that Reform spokesmen only ever pop up to denounce their own supporter base.

As to the Tory party, I think I’d rather suffer a decade of Labour than Olukemi Badenough. If all we’re likely to get out of Badenough is superficial anti-woke politics without making any fundamental reforms, then it would be a further waste of everyone’s time. There is no sign of Badenough hitting the ground running. In fact, she seems to have gone to ground. Either that or I have ceased paying any attention to what the Tory party does (Which is also possible).

With such lamentable prospects for the 2029 election, I’m thinking more about 2034, and building an alternative party. I’m of the view that that a violent (political) market correction is brewing, so the best use of my time is to popularise policies and ideas for when it happens. I’m now working with the Homeland Party to develop a full range of policies.

I’m well aware that this latest enterprise will face all the same challenges as any other tiny party, but there’s a real energy to Homeland, and it’s making ripples. Disillusioned Reform supporters are starting to take an interest and are publicly and privately admitting I was right about Farage.

Moreover, it doesn’t take very much to influence the online debate. With just a few coordinated, dedicated activists we stand a chance of moving the Overton Window. In many respects, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, we’re kicking at an open door.

The main obstacle to more robust immigration policy on the right, ironically, is Nigel Farage, where even his own MPs are subtly counter-signalling him. Even Robert Jenrick is further right than Reform. Perhaps if Reform starts losing activists to Homeland, it might change their tone. The mood music is always decided on the fringes.

In the grand scheme of things, the petition calling for a general election may not mean very much, but it is a marker of the current levels of discontent, which will only grow louder as Labour stumbles from one crisis to the next, making each one worse as they go.

Meanwhile, though British politics is slouching towards Christmas, the world will look very different come January as Donald Trump resumes the US presidency. It may also be that the war in Ukraine could blow up big-time, into a national emergency before Christmas.

From there on in, we are in a new era, potentially marking the end of woke, the end of the climate scam, and possibly the end of American interest in European affairs. This prompts Starmer to seek out closer links with the EU, as Europe is forced to take its own defence more seriously. But it’s hard to see how Starmer does so with any credibility having just announced a round of defence cuts, further eroding our minuscule helicopter fleet and scrapping surface ships.

I rather imagine sentiment will further sour for Starmer as we watch America enjoying a revival of national confidence, while Europe is mired in its self-inflicted Net Zero doldrums. It may be enough to reawaken Brexit spirit on the British right.

The problem though, is that there is to be no intellectual revival on the British right. It’s not going to come from Reform and it won’t come from Badenough. The Tories could ride the Trump vibe back into Number Ten but little is achieved until the Nigerian is deposed - which, in the Tory party, always carries the risk of replacing bad enough with worse.

Depressingly, we could be waiting a lot longer than a decade for the British right to get its act together, so now is is as good a time as any to be starting a new party. Waiting around for bored hobbyist millionaires to get their act together hasn’t got us anywhere.

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In other news, though I’ve not been pounding Substack so much lately, I’m busy as ever on X, and this week I’ve been talking to Rick Munn on No Risk, No Reward Media…