Uniting the right? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad (a YouTuber of some note), has set out five principles for uniting the right. It’s pretty bog standard National Conservative shtick. There’s not much to disagree with, but for his central premise. There is no uniting the right. Narcissism of small differences prevents it. Don’t waste your time trying.

That there are a dozen right wing minnow parties is due to the lack of a credible party the right can get behind. (i.e. One with the right ideas, structure, leadership and financial backing). If one existed, these other ones would melt away virtually overnight.

Particularly, the existence of these parties is a symptom of the inadequacy of Reform. If it had an intellectual underpinning, intelligent policies to deliver its vision, and a grassroots architecture, there would be far less fragmentation. Ukip would probably evaporate, and Reform would be seeing defections from the Tory party. If I was a Tory MP I would not bet my career on Reform in its current guise.

In fact, I would go as far as saying it’s now or never for Reform. The party should be hoovering up disaffected Tory voters to the extent that Tory MPs in marginal seats are willing to gamble a defection. But that’s just not happening. Tory voters are staying at home. If Reform isn’t picking up momentum now, it’s reasonable to assume it never will.

Regular readers will be aware I’ve set out in detail what I think Reform needs to do, but I think it’s a tall order for a party that isn’t really a party. I don’t think the key actors have the political skill or the time to pull it off. I would love to be proven wrong, but if they’ve only half-understood the point, they haven’t really understood it at all. You can’t fake authenticity, and you can’t wing it if you want to be taken seriously.

Much of my previous analysis has centred on Reform’s lack of an intellectual underpinning, but there’s a certain elephant in the room. Just about everyone I talk to tells me the problem is Richard Tice. He is running scared of leading a party that risks being labelled “far right”. Establishment respectability matters to him, thus he cannot lead it. If a party isn’t prepared to go to war on the shibboleths of the centrist consensus, then there is no point in it existing. Consequently, Reform will not achieve anything of note.

Though predictions are ill-advised in this game, I have a hunch that Reform will fade into the background after it fails to impress at the general election. Its inability to win or hold seats will mark it as done for. The media already believes it’s going nowhere without Farage, and an underperformance at a general election will, in their eyes, underscore their point. Following an election defeat, all eyes will be on the civil war in what’s left of the Tory party.

If it emerges as a NatCon party, then there's the basis of a new movement. If, though, it's a rump Tory party run by wets, then we'll have to start from scratch. None of the alternative right wing organisations in the game right now have a future. The alternatives to Reform are a largely defunct Ukip, quasi-fascist one-man bands, and “very online” niche anti-woke parties, none of which has what it takes to build a popular movement. The factions are going to have to compete to weed out the dross until there is an obvious frontrunner. We'll know it when we see it.

The faulty assumption on the right is that there’s a shortcut to movement building. Any movement that’s serious about power needs to be working a twenty year plan. That could have been Reform, but the party believes it has inherited the Ukip “people’s army” and can pick up where the Brexit Party left off. But too much has changed. The tectonic plates of politics are shifting in unpredictable ways.

In theory, Reform could take a hit in the next election and then start building a movement. The party would be well placed to do so if the Tory party reinvents as a “one nation” liberal party, but the fundamentals would have to change. It would have to completely reinvent and grow out of being generic and populist. This seems unlikely given Reform’s absolute financial dependence on Richard Tice. I suspect voters will still be in the market for something new, free of the Brexit/Farage baggage.

Ultimately, the right will not unite until there is a coherent organisation. It smells like the best bet is a reinvented NatCon Tory party, or a new entity built along those lines, but it will have to stake its territory firmly in the centre right with robust policies not only to control immigration, but also to address the failures of multiculturalism. If it is at all timid or compromised in how far it will go, the activist base will continue to fumble around in the dark looking for something that meets their needs.

Either way, nothing will be resolved before the next election. We can’t know what comes next until we have a full survey of the wreckage, and we’ve seen who’s still left standing. Some of the key players lining up to shape the post-defeat Tory party might be kicked out of parliament, and then all bets are off.

Meanwhile, there is a nihilistic tendency on the right to push for a complete obliteration of the Tory party. I certainly understand the impulse but I doubt it will happen. The Gaza effect on Labour will mute the effect of Reform on the Tory party, and Labour’s election campaign will be sufficiently awful to make normies think twice about voting for them. A Tory rump will survive. In light of that, few will thank Reform if they end up ousting Jenrick, Cates or Braverman. Tice’s strategy of “wiping out” the Tories regardless of who is standing is not beneficial to our cause, nor is enabling a larger Labour majority.

My view now is that a stalemate is probably best for the country. If Labour is going to be the largest party, it’s best for all concerned if it doesn’t have an outright majority. As such, we should simply warn about the danger of Labour and trust the voters will do the right thing. Whatever that is.

On that score, the electorate has a pretty good track record. They kicked out John Major and Gordon Brown, they denied Cameron and May an outright majority, and emphatically rejected Corbyn. This time around they’ll punish the Tories but they won’t embrace Starmer with any enthusiasm. For all the problems with First Past The Post, the overall verdict is seldom wrong. What happens next is what really matters.