Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I know it's as early days as it can be for the government but it is so bloody refreshing to read appointments based at least in part on competence and not solely on where they stand on the Johnson-Sunak-Truss axis.

That'll come.

We'll see how it goes. I think these types of appointments don't always work out. But they are continuing, with Lord Hendy stepping down as Chair of Network Rail to become a Minister in the Department for Transport

dan barker
@danbarker
Fairly experienced:
- Began as a London Transport graduate trainee, 49 years ago & has worked in transport ever since
- Previous Commissioner of TFL
- CBE for services to Public Transport, Knighted following Olympic/Paralympic transport success, cross-bench Peer
- Chair of Heritage Railway Association, Hon Chair of London Bus Museum, Trustee of London Transport Museum, Chair of Network Rail
- Owns 2 Routemaster buses
- Apparently (according to @w9maidavale) has 'Mind the Gap' as his ringtone

Even if it doesn't work out just glad he's getting to live what I'm fairly sure is his dream.

Edit: He has a train named after him!


And I don't fully get it, but helps organise and volunteers for an annual bus service to a lost village:

Introducing IMBERBUS

On a cold winter's evening back in 2009, over a few pints in a Bath pub, four transport professionals discussed where the most unlikely place would be to run a bus service. The answer was a place that the public were not normally allowed access to and so the idea of running a bus service to the village of Imber on Salisbury Plain was born.

[Gups]

So not sure what "PPE" means.

Politics, Philosophy and Economics - a course at Oxbridge that is very common among MPs.

You can't do PPE at Cambridge. Lots of other places do it though. I started doing it before realising my maths wasn't good enough for the economics.

[Sheilbh]

Oh stand corrected I thought it was an Oxbridge (and Durham) course.

[garbon]

I see Suella is setting out stall as expected. Tories failed as they weren't nasty enough.

[Tamas]

I see Suella is setting out stall as expected. Tories failed as they weren't nasty enough.

It is crazy they can convince themselves of this when they got trounced by a Labour party which pivoted heavily toward the centre.

[Richard Hakluyt]

She'll be wearing swastika armbands before she's done 

Oh well, I have always preferred the lib-dems to the tories.

[Sheilbh]

Although worth pointing out the reporting that many of the supporters of her previous leadership bid are already defecting and reports are that she won't have the votes to get into the final two (or even possibly onto the ballot at all).

I also think it's striking that she's making those comments in a speech in the US, where there's money in the conservative grievance grift. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up defecting to Reform at some point - I imagine they'll be actively hunting possible defectors.

On that I wouldn't entirely be surprised if Reform implode this parliament. I don't want to make a prediction that can be quoted back at me....but I feel like the four Green MPs and their vote will turn out to be more significant than Reform:

Suella Braverman losing support as potential party leader, Tories say
Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor
Sun 7 Jul 2024 21.43 BST
First published on Sun 7 Jul 2024 17.54 BST

Conservatives have suggested that the former home secretary Suella Braverman is losing support as a potential party leader, as some who lost votes across southern England privately urged colleagues to resist a lurch to the right.

A number of MPs now see Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch, all of whom have ruled out a deal with the hard-right Reform leader Nigel Farage, as more viable candidates.

The Conservative party board is expected to meet on Monday to begin to draw up plans for a leadership contest to replace Rishi Sunak after the Tories' devastating general election defeat.

Some party grandees have been pushing for a longer leadership contest, but no decision will be made on the timeline until a meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee of remaining Tory MPs.

Those who have spoken to Sunak describe him as shellshocked by the election result, the Guardian has been told. He has been calling all former Conservative MPs who lost their seats over the weekend, engaging in personal conversations of sometimes more than 10 minutes.

Three potential leadership candidates appeared to discuss the postmortem in the Sunday papers and TV shows: Braverman, Jenrick, the former immigration minister, and Victoria Atkins, the former health secretary.

Strategists for a number of candidates are analysing the records of the 121 remaining MPs. "It's not a Faragist party," said one. "Anyone who pursues that will lose."

Another senior Tory said: "It must be more than banging on about immigration. Labour's weak spot is delivering on their promise of growth. That is going to become a big debate in British politics."

One former MP said: "There are no more Conservative MPs in Oxfordshire. That is not because we were not similar enough to Nigel Farage. It is because we were incompetent."

The former justice secretary Robert Buckland, who lost his seat on Friday, warned the party not to flirt with Reform. "Letting in Farage is like letting a fox into the henhouse. He is a French poujadiste, not a British Conservative," he said.

Some MPs and senior party figures said they believed Braverman was losing support among the remaining MPs in the party to Jenrick. She is the only potential candidate so far who has suggested an accommodation with Farage.

"I don't think the Suella campaign is going to get off the ground and there is also a significant 'stop Kemi' campaign," said one senior Tory. "Electing either of them is a recipe for more internal warfare."

The Daily Telegraph reported on Sunday evening that Danny Kruger, a Braverman ally who is the co-chair of the rightwing New Conservatives caucus, would back Jenrick for the leadership.

Jenrick is said to have been making calls to sound out support. Patel, Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat are also seriously considering leadership bids. Patel, also a former home secretary, and Tugendhat are understood to believe they can reach across the party and appeal to both those who were denied their seats by Reform and those who were run close by the Liberal Democrats.

One MP said there was a growing view among colleagues that no one associated with Sunak's leadership could lead the party. "Consensus is that we don't want to jump in to a race dominated by those who also bore responsibility in government, which was all of them," they said.

The candidates are expected to conduct a private courting of support before declaring. "There's no advantage in declaring first," one key supporter of one candidate said. "The party is still very traumatised and if you declare first you risk a backlash."

The party is divided over whether to aim to have a new leader in place by the time of the Conservative party conference or at the latest by the autumn budget.

"I think most of us don't want to rush this," one MP said. "We need time to reflect and understand. After all Labour didn't win this election. On 34%, their percentage was overstated by the pollsters hugely. The real story is the chaos and anger on the right of politics."

Jenrick, speaking on the the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, said he believed that delivery – especially on immigration – was key to the party's loss. "We did not deliver the level of growth and taxation that Conservatives expect, the quality of service in the NHS that the public need, and above all the secure borders and controlled, reduced migration that we promised and which we need to deliver," he said.

Atkins, a Sunak ally, said there was still potential for the Conservatives to regain strength quickly. "I do observe that the support for the Labour party in this election has spread very thinly, a little bit like margarine," she said, adding that she believed the country was "instinctively Conservative".

In a piece for the Daily Telegraph, Braverman said the party had to vow to "leave the ECHR, scrap the Human Rights Act and fix Labour's Equality Act".

She said there was "already complacency" about why the party had lost. "We Tories need to face facts: we failed in office and deserved this result. Any analysis of the worst general election in our history that doesn't start there is self-comforting or self-serving."

MPs will meet when parliament returns next week for a 1922 Committee meeting chaired by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown after the former longtime chair Sir Graham Brady did not stand at the election. Some former MPs who were understood to have been interested in replacing him have lost their seats and MPs said the contest for that role was now wide open.

MPs have issued strong warnings internally about rumours that members could be cut out of a vote in leadership contest, saying it would drive hundreds of councillors and activists to defect to Reform.

"We are finished as a party if we don't involve members, huge numbers of our councillors will defect. It's a suicide mission," one said. "The one thing Reform don't have are people experienced with elections, agents, they can't do campaigning locally effectively. We do not want to hand them our people by giving them a reason to defect."

I think that 34% stuff is a huge trap for the Tories - and it's one I'm not sure they'll avoid. I think that number is lulling them into a "not as bad as it could have been" (as is the fact the MRP's underestimated their seats) which means they'll mistakenly interpret the worst result in their modern history. And they'll basically end up in one more push/"the public are obviously going to turn on the government we all hate" which will not work. The other trap is that they try to "unite the right" - although I think this won't be too popular within the party.

I could be wrong. Voters are now loaning their votes to everyone (and arguably that's a good thing). But I suspect they probably need a generational shift in terms of leader. I think it's striking how the candidates who are at least on an observable plane of reality are not looking enthusiastic about becoming leader while the madder types (Braverman, Jenrick etc) are up for it. Not sure who the best leader for them would be - my instinct is maybe Badenoch or Cleverly but I'm really not sure. I think there's a lot of work for them.

Although we really should move on from Tory pschodrama. They're not the government and unless you're a sicko we don't need to pay attention to them for at least the next year or two.

Edit: I'd also add opposition is very different than government and I don't think any of the leadership candidates have experienced it - they've all been MPs with a Tory government and a fair wind. The culture shock is going to be huge. As I say I suspect they'll need a generation shift.

Also striking: there are more sitting MPs now who served in Gordon Brown's last cabinet than who served in Boris Johnson's.

[Sheilbh]

Separately I missed this at the time - arguably in actual achievements of the last government - the age of coal is almost over. Extraordinary shift even compared with a decade ago and hugely significant from a UK history perspective:

GB Railfreight
@GBRailfreight
Jun 28
In a landmark moment, GB Railfreight has made the final planned coal delivery by rail in the UK.
We delivered the shipment to @uniper_energy  Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, as it prepares for closure on 30 September. (1/4)

The 1,650-tonne delivery, which is expected to be the last in the station's history, carries enough coal to generate electricity for approx. 500,000 homes for an eight-hour period. (2/4)
It signifies the culmination of a long-term partnership, during which more than 6,000KT of coal were transported from the Port of Immingham. (3/4)
To mark this moment, GBRf's Chief Executive Officer, John Smith was joined by Peter O'Grady, Plant Manager and Mike Lockett, Country Chairman of @Uniper to name locomotive 66781 'Ratcliffe Power Station'.
Read more here: https://gbrailfreight.com/gb-railfreight-completes-historic-final-coal-delivery-and-names-a-locomotive-ratcliffe-power-station/
 (4/4)

Still be some for industrial uses like steel etc but basically the end of coal in Britain.

[Jacob]

Although worth pointing out the reporting that many of the supporters of her previous leadership bid are already defecting and reports are that she won't have the votes to get into the final two (or even possibly onto the ballot at all).

I also think it's striking that she's making those comments in a speech in the US, where there's money in the conservative grievance grift. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up defecting to Reform at some point - I imagine they'll be actively hunting possible defectors.

On that I wouldn't entirely be surprised if Reform implode this parliament. I don't want to make a prediction that can be quoted back at me....but I feel like the four Green MPs and their vote will turn out to be more significant than Reform:

So to draw from the Canadian experience...

The takeover by Reform is not a one-and-done operation. The pattern goes like this:

• The Tories implode and Reform grows significantly. [this just happened]
• The Tories decline to lurch hard right, while Reform recedes a bit as their worst idiots embarrass the party. [this is just about to start]
• The electorate does not reward the Tories for resisting the lure of the hard right as they're still tainted by their past BS. Meanwhile, Reform starts a slow process of cleaning up their image; becoming less off-putting in image but not substance. [this will happen over the next few election cycles].
• At some point the Tories will get tired of rebuilding unsuccessfully as centrists and decide they do in fact need to go more hard right to differentiate themselves more clearly from Labour.
• At the same time, Reform will have built themselves up as more acceptable and legitimate standard bearers of the hard right, and some sort of merger / take-over / unite the right deal will make sense tactically and strategically.
• If they're lucky, that will coincide with Labour fatigue in the UK and voila, you'll have Farage-flavoured Tories in government (Farage by then will be an elder statesman of the movement, with one of his successors becoming PM).

It doesn't have to happen like this, of course, but that's the pattern I'd be looking out for. I'll also note that the Tea-Party takeover of the GOP was not a one-and-done thing, but something that happened over a number of years and several election cycles.

[Barrister]

Although worth pointing out the reporting that many of the supporters of her previous leadership bid are already defecting and reports are that she won't have the votes to get into the final two (or even possibly onto the ballot at all).

I also think it's striking that she's making those comments in a speech in the US, where there's money in the conservative grievance grift. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up defecting to Reform at some point - I imagine they'll be actively hunting possible defectors.

On that I wouldn't entirely be surprised if Reform implode this parliament. I don't want to make a prediction that can be quoted back at me....but I feel like the four Green MPs and their vote will turn out to be more significant than Reform:

So to draw from the Canadian experience...

The takeover by Reform is not a one-and-done operation. The pattern goes like this:

• The Tories implode and Reform grows significantly. [this just happened]
• The Tories decline to lurch hard right, while Reform recedes a bit as their worst idiots embarrass the party. [this is just about to start]
• The electorate does not reward the Tories for resisting the lure of the hard right as they're still tainted by their past BS. Meanwhile, Reform starts a slow process of cleaning up their image; becoming less off-putting in image but not substance. [this will happen over the next few election cycles].
• At some point the Tories will get tired of rebuilding unsuccessfully as centrists and decide they do in fact need to go more hard right to differentiate themselves more clearly from Labour.
• At the same time, Reform will have built themselves up as more acceptable and legitimate standard bearers of the hard right, and some sort of merger / take-over / unite the right deal will make sense tactically and strategically.
• If they're lucky, that will coincide with Labour fatigue in the UK and voila, you'll have Farage-flavoured Tories in government (Farage by then will be an elder statesman of the movement, with one of his successors becoming PM).

It doesn't have to happen like this, of course, but that's the pattern I'd be looking out for. I'll also note that the Tea-Party takeover of the GOP was not a one-and-done thing, but something that happened over a number of years and several election cycles.

So first of all, of course, I have to vocally argue that Reform (Canada) was full of "idiots".  I was there, I even attended the national conventions in 1992 and 1994, and the party was very explicit about keeping the racists, bigots and the like out of the party.  There was a media narrative that just because Reform was new and on the right it was some kind of neo-nazi party that was completely unjustified.

I also have to argue that the PCs ever decided they needed to go "hard-right".  I mean their leaders were Jean Charest, Joe Clark (PM from 20 years earlier), and then finally Peter McKay - none of whom had a "hard-right" bone in them.  Charest went on to become the Quebec Liberal Party leader for goodness sakes.

Beyond that though... the big difference is the scope of the collapse of the Tories compared to the Canadian PCs, and the amount of success (or lack thereof) of Reform Canada vs Reform UK.  The PCs went down to 2 seats in 1993, and while they recovered very slightly by 1997 it was only to 20 seats, making them the fifth party in Parliament.

Fundamentally though the issue on merging parties is that both parties need to feel like it is in their best interests.  There have been calls for decades to merge the Liberals and the NDP, yet it has never happened - NDP feel like their interests are best served by being a minority party in parliament, and Liberals feels like they don't need the NDP in order to win.

Going back to Reform - you may recall there was this whole process of forming the "United Alternative", which then became the "Canadian Alliance (formal name the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance) - which brought some PC members onboard, but at the time the PC Party under Joe Clark wasn't interested.  It was only once the PCs changed leaders to Peter McKay when the two parties finally agreed to a merger (and even then - McKay had signed a written pledge to second place leadership finalist David Orchard that he would not merge with Reform/Alliance, yet turned around and did so).

So anyways to your point...  On the one hand I agree that it isn't necessarily a fast process.  Heck you can look at a similar process in Alberta, when the PCs and the Wildrose Party went against each other a couple of times, leading to an NDP victory, before leading to a merger of the two parties.

You know what - I'm going to go very, very deep into the weeds here.  Alberta had been governed by the Social Credit Party since some time in the 1930s.  Social Credit started out with some crazy ideas about monetary reform (which you couldn't really enact as a provincial government), but managed to stay in power and eventually became a much more traditional right-wing party.  But 30 years later - the Premier was Ernest Manning (Preston's dad).  The new rising opposition though was the PC Party under Peter Lougheed.  Both parties were broadly "of the right", so they actually held merger conversations.  Funnily enough two of the people involved in the conversations were Preston Manning (the Premier's kid, and future Reform Party leader) and Joe Clark (future very-short-term Prime Minister).

Ultimately the SoCreds and the PCs did not merge.  Lougheed's PCs correctly realized they could win without tying themselves to the SoCreds.  The PCs won and Social Credit faded into the dustbin of history.  (OK I warned you I was going deep in the weeds - Alberta Social Credit existed as a fringe party for a number of years before getting hijacked by pro-life activists in 2017 changing their name to the Pro-Life Political Association).

So anyways... (by the way you can tell I have this weird love of Canadian political history - don't get me started on the Progressive movement of the 1920s).

What does this mean for the UK Tories and Reform (UK)?  I dunno.  Reform UK feels like it didn't have much of a coherent message and only existed as a source of disapproval for otherwise Tory voters.  Their leader Nigel Farage is something of a dilettante who has come and gone from both Reform (UK) and UKIP a few times.

At this point I don't know that either party really feels like it's in their best interests to merge.  Reform (UK) has come off their best result ever, so they might think they have nowhere to go but up.  Tories can take solace that they still had a pretty solid election result (the fears of Canada 1993 were for nothing) and that Reform voters are bound to "come home".

I feel like it's much more Alberta 1960s then it is Canada 2000s (or Alberta 2010s).  But I could be wrong.  If there's another election that sees Labour win with only 33% of the vote while Reform and the Tories split the right-wing vote you might see some definite movement.  But I don't see it right now.



Jesus Christ what's wrong with me - why did I write such a long Canadian political history post in a thread about UK politics that is likely to be read by 10-20 people...

[Sheilbh]

I enjoyed all that - some UK factors.

Reform is not a real party - there are no democratic institutions within the parties. There are very few activists or councillors. They have said that's what they're going to work on next - but we'll see. Historically, Farage doesn't play well with others. Whenever he's had other prominent figures, like Kilroy, or defectors, like Carswell, there tend to be huge, public rows followed by defections. In this party with five MPs there are at least three men, with big egos, who probably think they should be leader. As well as Farage, you've got Tice who is the main funder of the party and Lee Anderson (Labour Councillor, to Tory MP and Vice Chair, to Reform MP). They'll be hunting for further Tory defectors - but I'd honestly be surprised if all five are still in the same party at the next election. My impression is Canadian Reform was a real party or became one - I'm not sure Reform are or will.

But the Tories definitely are. Their activist base may be small, but there are real institutions and loyalties there. Some Tory voters may see the appeal, some Tory activists may like what Nigel says - I suspect an awful lot of Tory activists and MPs will have zero interest in working with a man who has been dedicated to destroying their party for the last 25 years. Whether it's Buckland's "fox in the henhouse" or Badenoch's "he's the wolf from 'three little pigs'", I think there'll be a fair amount of resistance to any rapprochement with Farage. If you go back to the early 20th century Labour hated the Liberals more than the Tories and the bad blood between Labour and the SDP splitters in the 80s. In both cases for the same reason here - ultimately, for Farage to succeed he needs the Tories to fail.

As you've all made clear in the Canadian comparisons, geography was key. And there's something similar at play here (possibly with the addition of class, because Britain ). This is the map of who came second in each constituency:


The areas where Reform is second are, overwhelmingly, Labour seats. There are under ten Tory seats where Reform came second - the rest are Lib Dem or Labour. So the risk to the Tories losing seats is now overwhelmingly Labour or Lib Dem not Reform. Similarly the big swathe of seats that the Tories traditionally win when forming a government - in the South-East, well-off West London, the South-West, the East - are now held by Labour or Lib Dems.

In the Brexit referendum you had voters in traditionally Labour held areas voting Leave. That was the core of the "Red Wall" (seats held by Labour in 2010 and 2015, that voted Leave and then went Tory in 2017 and 2019). It is wrong to think that the Tories are "home" for those voters. After Brexit under May and Johnson the Tories managed to build a coalition including those voters - basically because I think their analysis of the cause of Brexit was right: immigration and regional inequality. So they talked about those issues. Unfortunately for them, Boris Johnson was Prime Minister. So, in fact, immigration tripled and fair to say Leveling Up did not work out. And - apparently - the rest of the party actually thought their core attraction to "Red Wall" voters was an incredibly patronising view of the North and working class that seemed to imagine they hadn't yet discovered lattes or aubergines.

But that tension was discussed during 2019 between a Southern stockbroker belt base that voted Leave but was, broadly, well off, broadly small state and in some ways liberal-ish, with a Northern working class and retired vote that voted Leave, was not well off, more socially conservative/populist and wanted state intervention in their communities. Johnson couldn't deliver and the personal flaws that made him unfit for leadership destroyed his premiership - but, I think, he was the only Tory in recent years who could speak to both of those groups. So I'm not sure uniting the right is necessarily about right v left - I think it's about whether you can put those two groups of voters back together again. And I'm not sure there is a senior Tory right now who can - but they might try by throwing stuff around "latte-sipping liberals" etc etc.

As in this election, it's not clear that for every step they make towards "uniting the right" in the Red Wall, they won't lose seats in the Blue Wall. I also think that another bit of Johnson's appeal was that he wasn't a miserabilist - Johnson's schtick was booster-ism and optimism (not "Amerian carnage"). I think too many Tories who try to do the culture stuff just come across as if they don't actually like the country anymore which is not attractive to most voters (and something Labour can be at risk of from the other end).

I think it's very interesting and striking that an area the Tories did better than average in is Ben Houchen territory. He is the Johnson-ish, populist Metro-Mayor who has, for example, brought the local airport into public ownership to keep it open and done a lot (allegedly shadily) to attract investment into the region. That area bucked the trend and he has come out full of praise for Starmer, saying he wants to work with him for his region and very damning on Farage. After quoting Johnson approvingly ("Talent and energy and enthusiasm and flair are evenly spread across the UK. It is opportunity that is not."), he goes on:

We must reject the argument being made by some that a clumsy rightward shift would somehow magically solve the problems we face, just as a leftwards lurch would fail to revive our political fortunes. Farage's appeal lies in his outsider status and critiques from a distance of the established framework. Embracing his or Reform's strategies would drive further electoral losses and would entirely miss the reasons for our election defeat.

Populist promises would undermine core Conservative values of responsible governance. Sustainable economic growth, robust public services and pragmatic solutions for complex issues such as climate change cannot be achieved through populism's oversimplified proposals. Populism thrives on emotive, short-term appeals, but effective governance demands long-term planning, compromise and nuanced policymaking — harder to maintain in a sensationalist media landscape, yet crucial for an electable Conservative Party.
[...]
Drawing on Kipling's timeless wisdom to "meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same", the Conservative Party must beware false prophets who speak with gilded tongues, as that way madness lies.

The road to redemption for the Conservative Party will be as long as we choose to make it. We can either roll up our sleeves, get serious and build a credible offer to the country; or we can kid ourselves and ignore the mistakes of the past, choosing instead to advocate for a right-wing form of student union politics that will drive us further into the wilderness.

I think it's also worth pointing out that for all of Reform's breakthrough - they got just under 2% more vote share than UKIP did in 2015. As with Labour the polls overestimated their vote (but underestimated the Tories and Lib Dems).

To take all that further - this is why I (only partly jokingly) wonder if any attempt to re-join the EU may come from the right (and not for many years). There are about 100 Labour seats where Reform is second (and 30 were the Greens are). This is also why Farage is saying he is "targeting Labour" - simply put if they want to win any more seats, they need to win them from Labour. I think the current Labour leadership think class matters so care about keeping those traditional seats so the pressure from voters on Europe may be strongest on the Labour party. By contrast, the Tories need to win back all those Labour and Lib Dem seats of better off London commuters. You could even see the divide emerging as it did in the 70s and 80s: Labour for state aid and what we'd now say was basically a diplomatic focus on the global south outside of Europe; the Tories for the stiff, disciplining wind of competition, budget restraint and fortress Europe in it.

This isn't to say they won't try it or move right in the meantime - I think they're a party that got bored of governing a long time ago. As with Labour under Corbyn, I think they're eager to embrace their comfort zone from opposition and engage in some light factionalism. At some point the desire for power will reignite - it normally does more quickly for the Tories than Labour. It took them two election defeats after 1997 to go for Cameron, it took Labour three to get to Blair or Starmer. This could all be nonsense but my guess is their route to power is basically either by winning their old core areas, or pulling off Johnson's trick and winning those areas plus the Red Wall (I'm not sure they have anyone who can do either right now).

I think the big risk for the Tories is that they ignore the voters - I think that 34% spread thinly gives a false sense of security (helpfully gliding over the 20% decline in the Tory vote). I'm not sure if a long or short leadership race would help with this - I think the divides and dislikes are too strong. As I say I suspect they need to go for the next generation - I think anyone who has sat in cabinet in the last 5 years will be too discredited with the public.

[HVC]

That hex map makes me want to invade

[crazy canuck]

Shielbh, the timing is off for much of a comparison to the Canadian experience.  I disagree with parts of what both Jacob and BB said (I was there too) but the thing I think we would all agree is that by the time of the PC collapse, Reform was already an established party, although with limited electoral success.  They were then well situated to take the right of centre vote when the PC's melted down.

None of that is true in the UK. Including, as you noted the Uk Reformers got very little support.

Lastly, perhaps the main difference is that even if one did not agree with Manning's politics, he was a politician everyone respected. Farage is no Manning.

[Barrister]

Shielbh, the timing is off for much of a comparison to the Canadian experience.  I disagree with parts of what both Jacob and BB said (I was there too) but the thing I think we would all agree is that by the time of the PC collapse, Reform was already an established party, although with limited electoral success.  They were then well situated to take the right of centre vote when the PC's melted down.

None of that is true in the UK. Including, as you noted the Uk Reformers got very little support.

Lastly, perhaps the main difference is that even if one did not agree with Manning's politics, he was a politician everyone respected. Farage is no Manning.

Dude, no.

Reform (Canada) was formed in 1987.  They contested the 1988 election but got like 1% of the vote.  They did win a by-election in rural alberta in 1989 (Deb Gray ) but was hardly an "established political party".  Reform won some credit from the Charlottetown referendum in 1992 - when we were the only party (beside the BQ) to campaign against it - but still we were a party with a grand total of 1 MP elected in a by-election.

I remember vividly the 1993 federal election results.  I was at a Reform Party victory party.  We thought we might do well, but when the results came in - holy shit.  It was neck and neck between us and the BQ for official opposition.  We lost official opposition by 2 seats but that was an amazing victory party.

Anyways - I appreciate that 35 years later you say that Manning was someone people respected, although that was not my recollection at the time.

But I do agree that Reform (UK) doesn't at all feel like Reform (Canada), and that Farage doesn't feel like a Manning.  But we shall see.

[crazy canuck]

Shielbh, the timing is off for much of a comparison to the Canadian experience.  I disagree with parts of what both Jacob and BB said (I was there too) but the thing I think we would all agree is that by the time of the PC collapse, Reform was already an established party, although with limited electoral success.  They were then well situated to take the right of centre vote when the PC's melted down.

None of that is true in the UK. Including, as you noted the Uk Reformers got very little support.

Lastly, perhaps the main difference is that even if one did not agree with Manning's politics, he was a politician everyone respected. Farage is no Manning.

Dude, no.

Reform (Canada) was formed in 1987.  They contested the 1988 election but got like 1% of the vote.  They did win a by-election in rural alberta in 1989 (Deb Gray ) but was hardly an "established political party".  Reform won some credit from the Charlottetown referendum in 1992 - when we were the only party (beside the BQ) to campaign against it - but still we were a party with a grand total of 1 MP elected in a by-election.

I remember vividly the 1993 federal election results.  I was at a Reform Party victory party.  We thought we might do well, but when the results came in - holy shit.  It was neck and neck between us and the BQ for official opposition.  We lost official opposition by 2 seats but that was an amazing victory party.

Anyways - I appreciate that 35 years later you say that Manning was someone people respected, although that was not my recollection at the time.

But I do agree that Reform (UK) doesn't at all feel like Reform (Canada), and that Farage doesn't feel like a Manning.  But we shall see.

Dude, re-read what I said.  That is exactly what I described.

The Uk election for their reform party is a lot like 88.  That is why the timing is all wrong for when the Conservatives had their big failure moment.

There is not much you and I are going to agree upon regarding the history of the reform party.  You have a continual Blindspot for all of the racists that were in the party, as just one example.  Maybe you were just too young to see it?

But I thought at least we would have some common ground about what happened in 88.

I guess I was wrong.

In any event, I am sure that your fellow reformers would be very surprised to hear you claimed that by 93 they were not already established as a party.