The slow death of right wing populism

Last night I listened in on a nationalist space (Twitter radio) comprised mainly of Restore Britain supporters - and I am now more convinced than ever that Restore will implode. Whether the nationalist know it or not, their ideas conform to a doctrinal British nationalism and it is fundamentally at odds with the personal politics of Rupert Lowe and some of the more prominent party spokesmen, not least Howard Cox and Henry Bolton. Not only do they not understand the ideological friction or why it matters, they still don't see what problems it will create for the party.

As I'm prone to repeating, the test of these Slop Right parties is whether they can withstand the departure of their leader. On that basis, Reform UK is not in a good way because the party is built around the whims of Farage - but that also goes for Restore Britain.

Policy wise, insofar as Restore has documented policy, it's mainly reactionary right stuff with a Thatcherite tinge, and at some point, there will be a pivotal policy position that its own members simply cannot live with. (They agreed that support for Israel is a deal breaker). They will put up with it for as long as Rupert Lowe is useful to them, but that won't last - not least because it can't.

One of the chief problems is Rupert Lowe himself. He is an old man, he is slowing down, and doesn't have the stamina for being a public facing figurehead. Nationwide electioneering is a much younger man's game (Farage did his tour of duty when he was a younger man). He can remain a figurehead for so long, but eventually has to hand over the running of the organisation to people who don't share his ideology at all.

That's a problem because that immediately leads to a purity spiral and a purge, at which point they will attempt to shape the party more in the direction of doctrinal nationalism, shedding the ex-Reform/Tory base as they go. The fact that doctrinal nationalism has been an electoral flop every time its been tried doesn't seem to factor into their thinking.

Put this to them and you won't get a coherent answer. You'll get more of the same hostility, defensiveness and denial - followed by misdirection and obfuscation. You can bluff and assert your own interpretation of what the party is, but certain ideas belong to certain ideologies, and there is no disguising the conceptual conflict.

Moreover, I don't even think this conflict is recognised or understood at the top of the party. If it is, they are turning a blind eye to it for political expedience, in order to lean on the support of nationalists. This is much like the ERG right being in the same party as One Nation Tories. They simply do not rub along together - and in power would spend more time fighting each other than the opposition.

The ideological divide also extends to their main preoccupation; Immigration. Ethno-nationalists detest civic nationalists, but Rupert Lowe himself is a civnat. They will turn on him eventually. They are entryists just biding their time - because they're not capable of starting and maintaining their own party.

This is a problem that won't go away for Rupert Lowe. He's adopting the line of "We don't care" when it comes to the conduct of his own support base, but you can only really get away with that if the media accusations are largely spurious. Vessels like The Telegraph are throwing buckets of shit to see what will stick, and the problem for Rupert is that a lot of it will stick - and politics is a reputation game.

It is also a persuasion game. There are moderates who can be talked into a harder line stance on immigration, but not if your party is a breeding ground for far right ideologies. Just listen to one of their spaces. There is no attempt to conceal their antisemitism - and with that goes a lot of grotty politics than anyone well adjusted human will cross the street to avoid.

The extent to which this cohort makes up the activist base for Restore is not known, but it can be said to be significant in all the online spaces journalists inhabit. Moreover, when there is such a major ideological gulf between key figures, the media will use wedge gossip to provoke infighting. They do it because it works - and they have seen Restore coming a mile off.

On the whole, I get the impression that Restorers just aren't very bright. There are rules to this game, and they don't know them. To give Farage his due, he at least knows which ponds not to fish in - and that's partly why he had to put the kybosh on Lowe's freelancing.

For Restore, there are just too many open goals and too many obvious contradictions for there to be any longevity in it. Moreover, the average voter knows that Reform are their only real chance of sticking it to the man even if they like Rupert Lowe. As Restore limps on they will start to realise that while the do like and agree with Rupert Lowe, they don't like the company he's keeping.

Meanwhile, things are not rosy over on Reform Street. While flurry of gossip columns this week can be put down to a sour grapes campaign by Tim Montgomerie, rather a lot of it seems highly plausible. It is inconceivable that there isn’t a succession debate at the top of the party - and Zia Yusuf will be the topic of conversations. The Farage cat has used eight of his nine lives.

To me, Yusuf looks like the only viable option to replace Farage because it can’t be a Tory defector. Reform would then look like what it is. A breakaway Tory faction. But I don't think Yusuf has got what it takes. His politics are in the right ballpark but he's a cold fish as far as electioneering goes. There are a great many who won't put up with him because he's a Muslim - and will defect to Restore, while there'll be others who find him too confrontational and will drift back to the Tories.

Losing Farage will see Reform backsliding in any case, losing a lot of momentum in the process - at which point the Tories will harden up their rhetoric. The populist right looks very vulnerable right now, and could even implode before the election. The media knows this and will do everything in its power to make it happen. A lot rests on whether Farage can explain away a £5m crypto donation.

I’m of the view that all of this is downstream of the original sin of failing to build an intellectual foundation that can withstand the departure of the leader. For both Restore and Reform, an implosion seems more a question of when rather than if. It speaks to the lack of leadership ability in both parties.