Restore Britain: stupid little boys
I’m a bit late to the party but it looks like Allister Heath is not making any friends this week with his attack on Restore Britain. It’s a rare example of Heath being flat wrong. The issue at hand is whether Brits should meekly accept their demographic oblivion and become a minority in their own country.
I’m not inclined to go over the arguments again. My sympathies in this debate tend more towards Restore Britain. The assimilation and integration Heath speaks of is nonexistent where recent arrivals are concerned, and barely evident among the not-so-recently arrived. The only way to ensure those much vaunted “British values” survive (so essential to Heath’s civic nationalism) is to ensure the survival of our own people, and for that to happen, millions must be encouraged to leave.
Where I part company with Restore Britain is on competence grounds. Heath’s article prompted a response from Restore’s Charlie Downes…
I make no apology for demanding demographic security for my people in our own homeland. Allister Heath - editor of The Sunday Telegraph, supposedly Britain’s foremost right-wing paper - calls that “despicable, vile ... racism.”
I belong to a generation for whom such slurs have no meaning. If not wanting my children and grandchildren to grow up in a Lebanon-style sectarian nightmare makes me racist, so be it.
Let’s be clear, @AllisterHeath: you are a traitor to the British people, an agent of the anti-white establishment, and your pathetic slurs mean nothing. You will be remembered as among those complicit in the destruction of Britain, and your descendants will be ashamed to bear your name.
I really have to ask. Does Downes have the first idea how goofy this sounds? This is peak 2014 Ukippery. It was cringe-inducing back then and its just as cringey now. It’s also incredibly stupid. This kind of attack-dog politics is not endearing even if you’re right. It isn’t persuasive.
More to the point, it creates an open goal for your political opponents while making an enemy of the very people you need on your side. If anyone was persuadable, it was Allister Heath, but they’ve blown that one. Restore just keep making it easier to write them off as far right cranks.
The point I made to the Homeland Party in the attempt to establish a new “sensible nationalism” was that an intelligent ethno-nationalist policy prospectus to deal with immigration and the demographic imbalance looks much the same if it comes from a hardline civic nationalist party. The main difference is, the latter stands a chance at persuading people like Allister Heath, while the former just lends itself to the exact crankery that makes nationalism unelectable and ridiculous.
Having walked headlong into the ambush, making all the same mistakes, avoidably making enemies, Restore now looks like a BNP revival act. Meanwhile, more astute observers will increasingly notice the gulf between the politics of Restore Britain activists and those of its leader. It increasingly looks like Lowe is an absentee landlord, unaware of what is being done in his name, and unwilling to impose discipline on his own people.
My test of a party’s viability is whether it can withstand the departure of its leader. I’ve made this point often in my critiques of Reform, and as a measure of Farage’s leadership ability. Should Farage be forced out in the months to come, Reform has serious problems. Applying that same test to Restore, and it is likely the party folds without Lowe to lend it a figleaf of respectability. Without Lowe, Restore soon becomes an explicitly racist and vehemently antisemitic party with zero chance of winning Westminster seats.
What makes Restore different from the usual Ukip derivative is that it enjoys a lot of international support, particularly on X having secured the backing of Elon Musk, which is not trivial. Nobody can say Restore is a non-entity of a party, but to become more than it is would require a level of political skill and message discipline that simply isn’t there. Right now its conduct only serves to assist Reform in cementing its position as a centre right party, better able to deflect any suggestion they’re far right.
While that has a certain utility for the right, while also holding Reform’s feet to the fire, that arithmetic changes if Reform itself starts to implode. In that eventuality, with Restore behaving as it is, the Tories will be the main beneficiary of Farage’s fall from grace. Whatever we might have hoped for Restore Britain, it’s impossible to escape the fact that it’s run by stupid little boys.
Yup. Fair play, you called this from the outset.
Downes is an idiot. He wasn't ‘ambushed’. He just failed to make a coherent argument for disjointed and ill thought out policy. That's the thing with Restore Britain, a one paragraph policy doesn't fill out the details. Why? Because they haven't worked any out and rely on emotional impact. They are rank amateurs playing in the big boys’ pool and they’ve forgotten their water wings.
The issue isn't ‘demographic change’ as they all like to put it. Brits aren't being replaced, We're all still here. Our population is being added to exponentially by third world cultures. The arguments as to why are many, but the answe isn't to jump up and down shouting about ethnicity and how many parents, and where they were born makes you ‘ethnically British’. Not even the Messianic Rupert Lowe can do that overnight as he claims!
They do nothing that affects Reforms policy making, or pulling Reform to the right. Reform have to stay centre right to attract voters, that's where election victory comes from, not a handful of fat right wingers spouting ethno-nationalistic claptrap like Mr. Downes.
They are a ridiculous sham party designed to do one thing and one thing only, destroy Reform UKs chances of winning a general election. The only thing they can possibly achieve is more uniparty governance. If you want more Labour vote Restore.