How did
Reform end up in such a mess? Is that a serious question?
Zoe Williams
Nigel
Farage’s team is down to four MPs, with the suspended Rupert Lowe denouncing it
as a “protest party led by the messiah”. Let’s not waste time wondering who’s
wrong and who’s right
Mon 10 Mar
2025 17.26 CET
Ihave one
primitive but foolproof tool of political analysis. Trying to balance competing
claims in any matter of party discipline – unless it’s a party of which I am a
member, in which case, of course, I have already picked a side – I think: “Does
it sound as if anyone’s done the kind of vetting even I would know how to do?”
Rupert Lowe
has been suspended from Reform over claims of bullying and physical
intimidation, which he says are without basis. He went on to say, on X, that he
was “disappointed, but not surprised” by the allegations, which has a
conspiratorial whiff. He has already said the allegations are false, so if he
is not surprised to hear them made, it surely indicates that he thinks he is
dealing with the kind of people who will expediently exploit any kind of
nonsense.
In other
words, it’s time to settle in for this fight, which will not end quietly.
Any party
that returns more MPs than it expected to ends up with some dodgy ones – that
is just a fact. It was as true for Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 (I know he didn’t win,
OK?) as it was for Boris Johnson in 2019. General elections are just one
rolling exam crisis and nobody prepares for the questions they don’t expect to
come up – questions such as: “What happens if Labour wins Sheffield Hallam?”
(The answer being, of course, that within months it finds itself suspending the
new MP over misogynistic and homophobic comments.) Then there are the questions
that aren’t so much niche as existential: what happens if another large party,
which gets much of its energy from racist dog-whistling, turns out to contain
MPs who whistle a lot more audibly when they are not in front of a camera? You
can’t really prepare for that eventuality – you just have to hope nobody is
taking notes.
You would
think Reform would be immune to this kind of jeopardy, having returned only
five MPs – it’s a lot to get to from zero, but it’s not much for a compliance
team to get their teeth into. But Reform wasn’t immune, so here we are. Let’s
return to my primitive rule: how long would it take a person like me to
discover a blot on anyone’s copybook? I don’t have any connections with the
police, a background in IT or experience in HR. I am not a psychologist, or
psychic, so even though, like all middle-class women of a certain age, I am
pretty confident I can spot a wrong ’un when I see one, I have no
qualifications in this area.
All that
being said, if anyone had ever had a tantrum at work, if they had even put
their cup down in an irritable manner, I would definitely, positively have
known about it five minutes later.
None of
which is to adjudicate on Lowe’s guilt or innocence, merely to note that you
can understand why people might think that either Reform’s leadership has been
keeping these charges in its back pocket, for use in an emergency, or that they
are not true.
The only
demonstrably true thing about this debacle is Lowe’s inflammatory remark that
Reform is a “protest party led by the messiah”. If Nigel Farage has anything to
say, he is more likely to say it on GB News than in parliament. If he has any
discernible long-term strategy, it relates to how close he wants to stay to
Donald Trump, and how vocally. That doesn’t even align with the views of his
own party, let alone try to meet the rest of the country halfway (although,
sure, how you meet an electorate halfway, between “I hate Trump” and “I should
like to apply for the position of his lickspittle running dog”, is open to
question).
None of
which, again, is intended to determine the truth about Lowe: it’s possible for
everybody in this party, plus all its members, to be wrong. This doesn’t have
the air of a professional political organisation because it was never intended
to be one; it’s like the dog who chases cars, in that it would have no use for
the car if it caught it. The car – by which I mean every other party in British
politics – should stop running so scared of the dog.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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