Reforming Reform

Last week I met with Ben Habib of the Reform Party in London. To his credit, he responded online to some of my previous criticisms and invited me in for a discussion. I did not expect to see eye to eye with him, but there was more agreement than I expected. His reputation for conviction and sincerity is well deserved.

We chatted a little about Brexit, and our differences of approach. Ben was very much a no-deal Brexiteer and wanted a full blown confrontation.

That was always my reservation about no-dealers, in that it was more than just an immediate matter of trade. We were talking about a guillotine on an entire legal system encompassing everything from food safety and agriculture to aviation and energy markets. And more besides.

On that score, I don't think they truly understood the implications and there was no contingency or recovery plan in place that truly understood the gravity. The government had no plan, Brexiteers had no plan either, and the ERG plan was horrifying.

With media histrionics being what they are, the fallout would have been a magnitude worse than the market reaction to Liz Truss's budget, and I think the then government would have panicked, ousted the PM and installed a more emollient figure, who would then be confronted by the same basic Article 50 demands from Brussels. In all probability, given the lack of backbone, we'd have ended up with roughly the same deal we have now.

As such, I don't think there was ever an optimal Brexit and we were never going to get what we wanted out of it in one go. On that basis, I still think it was best that we avoided no-deal chaos, but now we have to regroup and start the build-up to the next phase. We are where we are. What comes next is what really matters.

Because Brexit was buried by a Tory party that never really wanted it, we're now on the run up to a Brexit 2.0. It’s not imminent, but it is inevitable. The Windsor Framework is intolerable, the TCA's non-regression clauses are unacceptable, and there are some nasties in the Withdrawal Agreement we have yet to contend with that could scupper labour market reforms.

But more than that, Brexit was never going to truly fix what’s wrong with Britain. EU membership was only ever a symptom of our political dysfunction and lack of national purpose. That still persists.

What’s needed is a restoration of National Democracy, and to reassert the democratic will over the international rules based order. To that end, we are going to have to terminate the TCA, the Paris Agreement, quit the ECHR, the Refugee convention, the WHO, and very probably the UN.

Previously I would have been cautious about such wholesale withdrawal, but events of recent years have caused a complete recalibration of my thinking.

Having departed the EU on reasonably amicable terms, we were set for a long sorting out process, but one that would eventually put Britain on the right track - but then Covid happened. Covid pretty much buried Brexit discourse and there was no real appetite to return to it once lockdowns were over.

Caught up in the “build back better” rhetoric, Boris Johnson doubled down on Net Zero, and kicked Brexit into the long grass. Now we’re back to business as usual under Rishi Sunak, who further buried any Brexit potential with the Windsor Framework.

Between that, the TCA non-regression clauses, and the galaxy of international treaties, the likelihood of the national renewal and reform we all hoped for is as remote as it was before the referendum.

When examined as a whole, with the difficulties in deporting illegal immigrants under the ECHR, and the stranglehold of the Paris Agreement on energy renewal, we need to overthrow the entire “international rules based order”. Our democracy can no longer be subordinated by our ludicrous devotion to illegitimate global agendas.

Admittedly, this is more radical than a no deal Brexit, but the arithmetic has changed. Instead of taking stock after Covid and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, politicians in the EU and the UK have doubled down on their worst ideas. The EU is quietly waging war on food production and agriculture as a whole, crippling itself with CBAM, and both seem hellbent on wrecking domestic energy generation. The latest ECHR ruling on climate action is a liability we simply cannot afford.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, we’re seeing amalgamations of councils and the quangoisation of local government, which effectively abolishes local democracy. Wokery is running rampant through the institutions. Civil society has been replaced by NGOcracy and the blob, and the police force is now broken beyond repair. We are locked into spiral of decline and our votes are increasingly meaningless.

As such, a conventional party isn’t going to cut it. We need a national movement for far reaching democratic and economic reforms. The Reform Party is the obvious contender given its status and resources, but without change, it could just as easily be a bed blocker. With that in mind, I have written to Ben Habib outlining my recommendations, which I detail below…

Reforming Reform – from party to national movement

There is near universal agreement that the Conservative Party has run its course. It passed up the opportunity to transform Britain and squandered an eighty seat majority. Not only has it failed to deliver a meaningful Brexit, it has presided over record levels of immigration – contrary to the demands of the majority of British voters. This would be a lengthy document were we to discuss all the failures of the Tory government.

Consequently, there is now a gap in the market for a competent, focussed party that will deliver real reform. Political disaffection is rife and there’s a growing appetite for an alternative. Various polls and pundits suggest twenty per cent of the vote is already up for grabs, and Reform, if it performs well, could sweep up thirteen per cent of the vote. But that’s not enough.

To get anywhere close to power and be considered a serious contender, Reform has to smash through the inherent electoral ceiling that goes with being a generic populist party. Reform may not recognise the populist description, but in its current form it will struggle to shake off that label in the media and in academic discourse. Its policy ideas are calibrated for popularity.

Presently, Reform operates as a traditional party; offering policy ideas in more or less the same structure (if not substance) as any other manifesto. Though it would do things differently, it is not fundamentally a different animal to what is already on offer.

To break out of the populist cul-de-sac it has to be more than a party. It has to be a movement for comprehensive change. The disaffection is as much to do with the way government runs as the inadequacy of the traditional parties. A movement for change must have greater ambition and offer something transformative that can transcend party and ideological divisions.

Reform’s current manifesto offerings are no doubt an improvement on what is offered by other parties, but a real party of reform must address itself to root causes rather than symptoms.

Before that can happen, though, the party itself must establish its own definition. There is nothing wrong with popular policies, but they must be logical derivatives of a larger mission. To fix what’s wrong with Britain, you first need a diagnosis that will help to define your own principles.

Defining the problem

Since the Second World War, the prevailing ideology of the West has been liberal internationalism, with a view to exporting good governance and democracy through international organisations, treaties, conventions and trade agreements.

Over decades, each of these instruments has become bloated, corrupt, and detached from their original purpose. Most, if not all, have been captured by out of touch progressives who have appropriated them to advance their own ideologies and preferred causes.

For a time, many of them have been considered a nuisance, but ultimately in our best interests to tolerate. In recent years, though, we find increasing friction between national democracy and the international rules based order. The ECHR and the Refugee Convention have undermined our immigration policies, while arbitrary climate targets and UN Sustainable Development Goals, have crippled our energy and foreign policy.

Consequently, we are no longer capable of acting in the direct national interest, and our domestic institutions have no concept of direct national interest. The very idea of acting in the national interest is considered small and inward looking. Most of our problems can be traced to a prevailing mind-set that holds democracy in contempt.

As such, the conflict of our times is that between international technocracy and national democracy. Ergo, Reform should stand in defence of national democracy, and for the restoration of real democracy – locally and nationally.

Causes, not symptoms

While Reform’s current manifesto would address some of the issues, the main problems in recent decades all have the same origin. ULEZ, Net Zero, the Lisbon Treaty, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, the ECHR, and the Paris Agreement (which obliges us to implement carbon trading, Net Zero and red tape that hobbles new infrastructure), are all the product of a feral establishment which has long since abandoned any notion of public consent. Between elections there are no constraints on what they can do to us.

Though it would be very welcome to see a party pledge to reverse all of this meddling, there is nothing to stop establishment parties doing the same or worse to us again.

As such, it’s not enough to simply withdraw from the ECHR and the Paris Agreement etc. We need to establish a framework of democratic principles upon which any future government must operate. We could withdraw from the ECHR but with without addressing the fundamental issues, it could end up being replaced with a similar construct operating on much the same basis. Reform’s mission, therefore, is to change the very basis of modern British democracy.

Having defined the problem, and established a philosophical basis for the existence of the Reform Party, subsequent policies suggest themselves, and policies are therefore consistent with the core mission and each other.

Strategy

Without a core mission, it’s very easy to wrong-foot an insurgent party. It’s conceivable that the Tory party could be pressured into making ECHR departure a manifesto commitment. The economic and practical realities of Net Zero could well see the entire policy agenda rolled back. In that eventuality, Reform’s general policy agenda looks less urgent. Reform has to offer something voters can’t get by voting any other way.

To do this, Reform must make National Democracy central to its existence. It must develop an intellectual product as the basis of its future campaigns. It should develop a future constitutional framework and popularise it by name – as something it would implement on day one.

On this, thinking should be along the lines of a Great Restoration Bill. Its primary function should be to assert the sovereignty of the people so that no treaty, international court or convention may bind a government without the explicit consent of the people by way of referendums. It would immediately void the ECHR, Paris Agreement and Refugee Convention in a single act.

The bill should implement a further British convention of rights, but instead of replicating the ECHR model of rights of the individual, it should redefine democratic rights but also tie these into defined responsibilities.

This should be written with a view to curbing the excesses of politicians, not only in Westminster, but also in the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales. It could include a new act of union with a view to reforming the dysfunctional Northern Ireland settlement. Though there is no undoing devolution, devolved governments are routinely acting outside of their remit, and centralising powers so they may abuse them. This must end. No local authority may be dissolved or see its powers curtailed without a referendum.

As regards to individual rights, we need a declarative bill that properly asserts British law as supreme, setting out how the rights of the majority may not be abridged. Under this instrument, we seek to define (once and for all) the parameters of our society which have gradually been undermined by multiculturalism and mass immigration.

Real and lasting reform

The current Reform manifesto is unambitious in terms of Westminster reform. Changing the voting system to Proportional Representation has merit, but does little to address the payroll vote and the lack of accountability between elections.

A Great Reform Bill should seek to establish real separation of powers. The primary concern here is that there should be a clear distinction between the legislature (Parliament) and the executive (Government).

Should the executive thus be separated, the obvious and logical outcome is that the prime minister and his ministerial team would no longer be Members of Parliament. They would have to be elected in their own right, a process which would reflect the increasingly presidential nature of general election contests. We may not like it that the public votes for leaders rather than candidates, but they do all the same.

The use of the Commons as the recruitment pool for most of the ministers (and the prime minister) has a highly corrosive effect on politics. The main function of parliament should be scrutiny of the executive. If parliamentarians are also members of the government, there is an inherent conflict of interest.

With separation of powers, governments would be able to look outside of parliament for expertise and leadership, and offer temporary appointment to the Lords. With such a model, voters can be more discerning in selecting their local MP – addressing the quality problem.

Voters should also be given a None Of The Above option on the ballot paper where a seat shall remain vacant until new candidates are selected and fresh elections held. Any MP who defects shall automatically trigger a by-election.

There should be an internal debate within Reform as to further democratic reforms. There is likely to be opposition to a codified constitution, but we are, in effect, talking about constitutional constraints for the defence of national democracy. This must be worded carefully.

Unlike a manifesto that deals with day-to-day policy, we seek to address the mind-set that produces the dysfunction in British democracy, where politicians believe that their elected status gives them free reign to do as they please, even to the point of signing away powers and funds that are not theirs to give away.

In respect of that, we need a new oath of allegiance for MPs, ministers, Lords and public servants that recognises the sovereignty of the people, and reminds them that their powers are loaned to them by the British people, and must be returned intact at the end of their tenure. Breaches should incur punishment.

Though such a reform agenda does not directly address traditional policy discussions, it will put voters back in charge so that they hold the final veto on matters that affect them.

A plan of action

Such an extensive programme of reform is not trivial. There are profound consequences. As such, Reform needs to be able to comprehensively defend its agenda. If international agreements are voided, there are implications for trade and foreign relations. It may even result in the termination of formal trade relations with the EU.

As such, a national plan of action should be formulated, with the emphasis on cheap energy for homes and industry, revitalised manufacturing and agriculture, streamlined planning, and an emergency energy infrastructure renewal bill that exempts development from vexatious legal challenges by activists.

These are second order policies for a subsequent manifesto born of the Restoration Act. Policies should seek to strengthen reforms but also address the political and economic fallout. These policies then become the legacy benefits of the constitutional reform – which help the party sell its agenda.

Definition is everything

Reform’s campaigning activities have thus far been disjointed and sometimes contradictory. Voters may like some policies but will notice the lack of coherence and consistency. Having a party definition will solve this problem. It will inform policy but also give structure to campaigning activity.

Calibrating policy to be popular outside of a core framework ultimately results in disorganised thinking and campaigning without focus. Popularity should be secondary to definition. A party that wants to be a national movement must state openly and clearly what it believes in, and develop ideas to deliver its vision, then gear its campaigns to popularise those ideas. The organisation then becomes a sales force with purpose.

Popularity is a longer term objective. In the meantime, the job is to develop coherence and competence which is persuasive in its own right. You are then offering something ambitious and different, but you can also convince voters you have the talent and intelligence to pull it off.

Activists and voters are always going to disagree on arcane matters of policy, but it’s far easier to agree on a set of defining principles. A party that exists to restore and protect democracy at the national and local level, and capitalise on responsive democratic sovereign government is one that should be able to capture the imagination of Labour and Tory voters alike. If Reform develops real reform ambition, it can be the movement to break out of the populist cul-de-sac.