Restore Britain: the sound of white noise

You're going to whinge at me for criticising Lowe and Habib. That's fine. I'm used to it. But I was right about Reform, you all know I was right, and I'm right about this too. When it comes to sniffing out the pathological amateurism of the British right, my instincts never fail me. You don't need a crystal ball when you understand the mindset at work.

So let's break it down. The first question is, in what way do either of these ventures answer the complaints their progenitors made about Reform?

This is where you have to go back to first bases. Habib's complaint about Reform was the lack of transparency, authenticity and internal democracy. This mattered because in the 2023 election the party was denied several seats because it had no local ground game to speak of. The existing structure of Reform means that local branches have no autonomy and no influence in how the party is run.

There's actually a lot to be said for keeping it that way IF the party has a competent and supportive central office that provides useful campaign material, advice and support. But that's not happening and candidates are left to fend for themselves, unless they show any sign of succeeding at which point Farage will parachute his mates in. This isn't right or fair. This has caused enormous disillusionment among the activist base, but the party doesn't care because it's relying on churn, believing there will be a fresh supply of activists as the party grows. Put simply, Reform treats its members with contempt.

The task, therefore, was to transition Reform from a brand name to an authentic grassroots movement. Zia Yusuf said that would happen, but it didn't happen. Very little has changed. As such, that party isn't growing strong local branches, and doesn't know how to direct activists. The party is looking at the midterm polls and doesn't see any problem with their existing approach.

The extent to which this matters is all contingent on whether it still matters to have a ground game. That's a more complex question. It matters where there is stiff competition for a seat. It makes the difference between winning a seat and losing it. But Reform appear to be banking on such widespread disaffection that they can win just as Labour did on low turnouts, and that they can win on the sole quality of not being Labour or Conservative. This is a gamble based on the assumption that the Tories will continue to freefall in the polls.

And you know what? They might be right. And if they are right, there's no real reason worry about the structural problems as far as just winning elections is concerned. In my view it has longer term implications and the party cannot afford not to democratise because the lack of accountability and affinity for its base is what will cause it to lose touch. We're already seeing signs of that. Their strategy is also risky in that the Tory party may yet climb out of its hole.

Rupert Lowe's concerns about the party, though, go further than Habib's discomfort with the structure. He we have to go back to Lowe's statement in April when he said "I simply cannot endorse a party that has put so frighteningly little thought into what it would actually do with power. Reform’s plan is to ride the protest wave, faced with two obscenely unpopular mainstream parties, but offer absolutely nothing constructive - chasing power for the sake of power. To ‘win’ the game, and it is a game to them". He really does have their number.

So let's go back to the question, how do their respective ventures satisfy their own complaints about Reform? Well, I'm not going to dive too deeply into Habib's party, not least because there is so very little to go on, but I think we can take him as sincere in his intentions. I think he genuinely does want to build a democratic organisation. But the problem for him is that he doesn’t really know how to do it. You have to build grassroots movements from the bottom up. It takes time and costs a lot of money, and Habib doesn't have enough of either. He'll be competing for donors in a crowded field, in which Reform is in pole position, because to many, it looks like it might win, and Habib just doesn't have enough profile. There simply isn't room for an upstart right now. I think Lowe probably understands this.

Where both Lowe and Habib come to the crunch though, is on the matter of policy and direction. Neither of then really know or understand the criticism about Reform. It's not just the lack of policy. It's the lack of a philosophical underpinning. They have ideas about what should be done (as do we all) but they lack an ideological framework. Habib thinks he has one, based on national sovereignty and independence (and the war on woke), which informs his subsequent shtick, but it's very much Brexit-brained headbanging. It has yet to be distilled into a firm ideological construct - without which, it will look like another disorganised Boomer populist party. This is the definition problem I was talking about last year.

Both Lowe and Habib have launched their websites, but neither have any real content. These websites are placeholders, and we are meant to wait and see what they're really about. They have not yet done the thinking about the vision or the principles. They think what they've put up will do for now and they'll backfill it later. This is the rank amateurism that infects everything they do. It's the Ukip disease. Both Lowe and Habib are carriers.

Where it really comes unstuck, though, is policy. Habib doesn't know how to think about policy and Lowe doesn't either. There is every reason to believe their output will be more of the same "hang em and flog em" bullet point slop. A tweet yesterday from Lowe, describing his organisation, reveals something of the mindset. "Issue-based campaigning, ratified by the movement, to deliver real change both now, and in 2029". In other words, like GBPAC, members will suggest things (like bring back the death penalty), and they'll have a a little vote on it - and if it passes, that's what they'll do because that's all very democratic. They equate habitual voting rituals with democracy.

As such, it is unlikely we will see detailed, thorough, realistic policy. I don't think they really know what policy is, or the utility of having it, and will settle for lightweight right wing tropes. That's all they know how to do. Three dimensional thinking is beyond their abilities.

I know this because we've seen them in action during Brexit. They were all fired up for a WTO Brexit, and when people pointed out that this would have complications and consequences, they either denied there would be a problem (evasion) or just made up some fantastical nonsense of how they would solve it (delusion). This often relied on creative interpretation of international law. Something Habib is still prone to doing on the matter of Channel pushbacks.

Whether Lowe is any more sophisticated remains to be seen, but his recent paper on deportations doesn't fill me with confidence. The success of his venture is then contingent on who is directing the policy process, and whether there are serious people in the room who will have the background to cross examine and poke holes in it. But that tends not to happen on the right. Pointing out flaws is being "uncooperative". The done thing is to lavish praise on whatever they produce, because anything else is "punching right". They very rapidly turn into affirmation bubbles, and serious people quietly peel away, rolling their eyes as they go. You then have a congregation of mediocre intellects like GBPAC.

Since the architecture of Restore Britain is much the same as GBPAC, with many of the same people and much the same mindset at work, there is no reason to believe it will be any different. There won't be much direction from the top because they don't know what they're doing or why, and whatever it does produce will be a the work of a handful of dedicated individuals doing their best but ultimately, lacking the ability to do it well. There will be a flurry of activity and enthusiasm, but without leadership it will quietly die a death, or just chug on in the background not really making waves.

In many ways this is a replica of Lowe's grooming inquiry, where he's blundered into something which seems like a good idea, but having no idea what to actually do, he's reliant on whoever he delegates it to to give it form. To be fair, there are some good people around him, but Lowe likes to keep things quick and simple, and doesn't see the need for a more considered approach.

On that basis, neither organisation really satisfies their own criticisms of Reform. Reform's essential problem is the institutional amateurism that runs through it like a stick of Blackpool rock. This is less to do with organisational structure, and is more to do with who these people really are, and how they think. Since Lowe and Habib are of that same slopulist mindset, there is zero chance of their endeavours producing different results.