Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

Well I think if Your Party had succeeded - which was possible - then the Greens would not be in the position they are. I think there was space for a party to the left of Labour to breakthrough but probably not two (although who knows, perhaps Restore UK suggests a different possibility).

And I'm not really sure what the right answer is on this for the Greens. But I think there is a strand of the party that has a standalone environmental pitch - and there is a version that basically sees themselves as the left of Labour (and a lot of Corbyn-backing former Labour members who have joined the Greens recently are in that camp).

I also think that more than any of the other parties - Labour leaves its institutional, organisational, factional imprint on former members/activists.

The Polanski effect on the Greens was big but I do find it often gets overrated. I see people online who just totally disregard the Greens before him.
Though they were growing steadily. Just jumped from 1 to 4 MPs. A breakthrough seemed to be coming either way.
I recall saying they seemed due for a bit of a reckoning between their european style social democratic greens and their small c conservative village green preservation society greens. Interesting how polanski pushing things way over to the side of the former and the coming of a lot of nuts hasn't seen anything out of the right greens.

As mentioned before I've been thinking of joining the Greens for a while but the recent Polanski stuff has really unsettled that - no interest in mixing with those sorts but at the same time another vote for sensible candidates locally would be good 

By your party being a success I didn't mean nor would I want or expect something on the level of the current Greens. More peak Galloway sort of levels.

So all parties have similar processes at the start which is people expressing an interest/applying to become a candidate. There is then a vetting process and normally an interview stage - with special training and development for star candidates/target constituencies. I think in both cases the Greens and Reform ae struggling with the vetting stage because the scale is different to anything they've previously experienced. Also I sort of think they lack the negative experience that shapes what vetting they do. For example, Labour are obsessive about preventing entryism (and it also provides a useful alibi for blocking candidates - e.g. Starmer's HQ blocking candidates for liking tweets by Nicola Sturgeon).

But the two parties have very different challenges/trajectories.

Reform basically did not exist until the 2024 general election. They are built around Farage and are very focused on the air war/media and digital side of politics. They now need to build an actual party - it looks like they are, on the other hand Farage has tried before and always fails at this stage because he doesn't like tall poppies.

The Greens have been around for fifty years, they're hyper-local, very decentralised and have build a party infrastructure designed to last basically forever. Until now they've deliberately not engaged in that media and digital side of politics and prioritise (excuse the pun) more organic growth - Polanski's changed that. And suddenly their brand and appeal is vastly bigger than it has been historically. They're attracting new types of people (including many exiles from Labour's hard left) and they need work out how they expand but also, I think, how they avoid it being a reverse takeover.

It was interesting to read recently that the Greens are starting to consider how they change their policy making process. I think I've mentioned before but I have a friend who is very involved in Green politics. They go to conference, they've proposed and had successful motions at conference. And their view is Green policies are a disaster waiting to happen as soon as the media pays any attention. It's very decentralised and slow - which is what Polanski wants to change, but also they have a "living manifesto" so policies approved by a party conference are permanently in the Green manifesto until another party conference removes it. So they've got some mad stuff in there. Some of it was just trendy in previous eras. So even aside from the leave NATO stuff which tends to get attention there's some very dodgy things about population control particularly in the developed world that was very of the moment for a (white, European) environmentalist in the 70s but now reads a little differently. My friend's a barrister so has read the entire thing and their view is the second there's a general election and the Greens are polling well someone in the media is going to actually read their whole manifesto and it'll be a disaster - not least because, to Polanski's point, it's quite difficult and cumbersome to change policy.

Edit: I'd add on the actual process it varies. The Greens are local but it's from an approved list with "development" candidates/constituencies who've received training. Reform also have training (which has leaked and seems to me pretty self-aware as it's basically: "stay off social media, focus on local issues and let Nigel talk about national issues") but they are still writing the party rulebook (I think this started at a recent conference and is partly why they're doing local conferences) so the actual process hasn't been formalised yet. Labour and Tories both have local constituency parties voting - Labour intervene more on this both through things like imposing all women shortlists but also procedural dark arts that allow them to impose a shortlist on a constituency. The Tories place a lighter thumb on the scale. I think on this as on most things, the Lib Dems are actually the most genuinely party democratic (which is why they're ripe for entryism and I don't understand why no-one's done it ).

Interesting look at things. Agreed on the dodgy green manifesto and the entryists - I know a few hardcore Marxist sorts and they've joined the greens lately. As can be seen with some candidates.

I've heard weird stuff about Deform candidate selection. Reaching out to people who aren't even members. I recall a centre left writer mentioning they'd been approached.
It seems very top down however right? Local parties aren't really a thing picking candidates. It's London parachuting whoever in.

There's some evidence Restore Britain might be a bit more of a real thing. They have bussed in many activists into Makerfield. At the local elections they won every council seat in Great Yarmouth (Lowe's constituency). Journalists covering the by-election say they are there. And that poll showed them on about 7% - not massive but presenting the same challenge for Reform/Farage as he presents to the Tories or Polanski does to Labour. Which is really interesting. If you extrapolate from that one constituency poll and it were to be replicated in a national election then it would cost Reform 100+ seats (Restore wouldn't actually win any more).

Yeah I've seen a lot of discussion about these guys.
With the current sexist candidate it sounds like Deform are shooting for the Restore vote :p

Lots of people saying restores rise isn't a good thing but.... Honestly I have trouble seeing it as too awful. The scummy 10% has always been there. But for the past 20 years they've been corraled behind sneakier men in suits.
The ultras breaking off to be full mask off scum bags....
Sure there's the argument it makes the mere far right look more palettable. But we are already in a place where Deform are normalised.
The key is to keep them out of power in the short term and to make use of this breathing room to become a democracy and to implement policies that cut off Deforms appeal and the radicalisation pipeline.

[garbon]

I don't know if it is the heat and/or the normalization of Reform but I saw two incidents of racial abuse within about a half an hour of one another this weekend. One was a group of young men (teens) who were shouting at some Muslims that they should be over picking up their trash (edit: for clarity they seemed to be suggesting they should act as janitors for the teens). Then I saw a white drunk who was yelling at various Africans that this was England and you must speak English in England.

[Sheilbh]

Grim - I'd add to heat the three day bender (especially because of heat) for bank holiday etc. 

[Sheilbh]

The Polanski effect on the Greens was big but I do find it often gets overrated. I see people online who just totally disregard the Greens before him.
Though they were growing steadily. Just jumped from 1 to 4 MPs. A breakthrough seemed to be coming either way.
I recall saying they seemed due for a bit of a reckoning between their european style social democratic greens and their small c conservative village green preservation society greens. Interesting how polanski pushing things way over to the side of the former and the coming of a lot of nuts hasn't seen anything out of the right greens.

As mentioned before I've been thinking of joining the Greens for a while but the recent Polanski stuff has really unsettled that - no interest in mixing with those sorts but at the same time another vote for sensible candidates locally would be good 

By your party being a success I didn't mean nor would I want or expect something on the level of the current Greens. More peak Galloway sort of levels.

I wouldn't necessarily position it as social democrats v small c conservatives. I think that difference has always existed - particularly in councils where the Greens have won. So for example, Brighton had a Green council and it was an endless civil war (with quite bad delivery of public services and big bust-ups with the local unions) between the "watermelons" (green on the outside, red inside) who were basically hard-left but in the Greens and the "mangoes" (green on the outside, orange on the inside) who were basically what you've framed as small c conservative but were basically Lib Dems.

I think different of those factions prevail in different areas. But the watermelon/eco-socialist wing has had a huge growth with Polanski (despite him actually having been a Lib Dem until about yesterday) and also with the Corbyn wing of Labour leaving and looking for a new home. But I think the bigger divide - and it's in Labour and I think across the European left is between a basically degrowth, reducing consumption, reducing use, convservationist of energy vision of energy transition/the environment (which is the wrong option our countries, a political dead end and would probably fail to achieve its goals in any event) and a more Promethean, not very conservationist version of energy transition that looks a bit more Chinese. I don't think the divide on that maps onto the mango/watermelon fight precisely and I think is just built in to the challenge because the origins of Europe's environmental movements (and America's - and I think China) is more from that first camp of local, real, lived environmental degradation v the global challenge of getting to net zero.

I'm not so sure the Greens were "due" a breakthrough. I think they were probably going to continue to get, want and be happy with slow, steady, incremental, organic growth because that has been the strategy for 50 years. I think 2024 was a breakthrough year but I'm not sure they would have brokethrough again or in the way they have with Adrian Ramsey as leader. I think Polanski is key - and this sort of goes to a point we've discussed before about why Farage/Reform were so present in the media and the Greens weren't, which is that the Greens didn't want that. It wasn't their strategy - and you can see it's night and day with Polanski. Lots of earned media, lots of social media, lots of press appearance, his podcast etc - their strategy has fundamentally shifted and it is working but comes with risks.

Interesting look at things. Agreed on the dodgy green manifesto and the entryists - I know a few hardcore Marxist sorts and they've joined the greens lately. As can be seen with some candidates.

I've heard weird stuff about Deform candidate selection. Reaching out to people who aren't even members. I recall a centre left writer mentioning they'd been approached.
It seems very top down however right? Local parties aren't really a thing picking candidates. It's London parachuting whoever in.

All parties reach out to people who aren't members who have a profile, seem aligned-ish to sound them out. I think he might have been a party member but Keir Starmer was poached by Ed Miliband as an outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions. Labour did similar with Tristram Hunt (who also thought of himself as a leader in waiting). The Tories did with Rory Stewart and others - these types do often seem to see themselves as leaders-in-waiting because they've been slightly headhunted for work outside of politics rather than working up the greasy pole of internal party politics, parliament etc. I think they've actually got a fairly mixed record in office. They're often on the technocratic end of politics thinking outside experience/knowledge/"techne" is what needs to be applied with a strange almost lack of respect/acknkowledgement that politics may have its own "techne".

On the Reform point specifically. The party as a political party - as opposed to a holding vehicle with some registered IP waiting for the return of Nigel Farage - has existed for less than 18 months. They don't really have local party branches or structures or rules for picking candidates yet because that's still being written by committees from conference. In practice that means the party centre picks things - as in the other parties. So in the case of Kenyon he was the 2024 candidate for that constituency and they've just gone with him again, whereas I think Matt Goodwin was definitely a high-ish profile person (online) they wanted to parachute.

The comparison I'd make is with 2017 when May calls a snap election. Most of the parties have not actually picked candidates for most seats they're contesting because constituencies typically do that a bit later in a parliament. In practice that meant the party HQs just make decisions from the list of possible candidates - the upside is they can push their own agenda whether that's factional or whatever else, the downside is the candidates tend to be less vetted and there's often some skeletons to come out the closet (it reminds me of the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam after 2017) and they an be just bad candidates/MPs. I think there was something similar in 2024 which allowed Starmer to really push a specific type of candidate because everyone's assumption was Sunak would call an election at the last possible minute (it's unusual for a PM who is expected to lose to go early).

On the possibility of a Reform meltdown - I'd just add Robert Jenrick and Zia Yusuf having a public fight today. As I say it might be nothing, they might win which re-sets the narrative and there's a long time to the next election. But it does feel a little like the wheels are coming off a bit in a way that is reminiscent of other Nigel Farage parties and they're not quite proceeding in the way they'd hope for.

Yeah I've seen a lot of discussion about these guys.
With the current sexist candidate it sounds like Deform are shooting for the Restore vote :p

Lots of people saying restores rise isn't a good thing but.... Honestly I have trouble seeing it as too awful. The scummy 10% has always been there. But for the past 20 years they've been corraled behind sneakier men in suits.
The ultras breaking off to be full mask off scum bags....
Sure there's the argument it makes the mere far right look more palettable. But we are already in a place where Deform are normalised.
The key is to keep them out of power in the short term and to make use of this breathing room to become a democracy and to implement policies that cut off Deforms appeal and the radicalisation pipeline.

My view is that bad things in the body politics are bad for our politics. I don't buy Farage's "one man cordon sanitaire" pitch but I do think that what comes after Farage will be a lot worse (but possibly a lot more fragmented too).

I think this was an argument people made about UKIP splitting the vote on the right. There's a slight enemy of my enemy is my friend/the mainstream right's problems is the left's opportunities. I don't think that's worked out in Britain and I don't think it's worked out anywhere in the democratic world - whether you're looking at Democrats who thought Trump would be an easier candidate to beat or Mitterrand changing the voting system to let the FN in and cause problems for the Gaullist right.

I think it's sort of too clever by half and actually the relative success of bad ideas/things/movements in our politics just increases their ability and chance to succeed. I don't think this just causes problems for Reform but actually will increasingly mainstream what Restore are talking about (especially as it's more aligned with similar parties in Europe that Farage won't work with but also is more Musk and MAGA-aligned than Trump so has online amplification too).

[Sheilbh]

I wonder what kind of salt and pepper he put in that set?

I have to be honest while it is bad that he embezzled £400,000 of the party's funds (over about 12 years), he is adding to the jollity of the nation (Scotland - not been picked up much here). Especially with the searchable spreadsheet of his spending. For example the year he spent nearly £300 on WMF chopsticks (who knew?!)

I also slightly wonder if this actually cuts through in a bigger way than you might expect. It slightly reminds me of the expenses scandal in the combination of basic corruption and absolutely ridiculous receipts.

[Jacob]

What are WMF chopsticks?

I mean, the WMF part?

[Zanza]

Maybe this? They make cutlery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMF_Group

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, I have greatly enjoyed finding out about what he spent the money on. So mundane, so ridiculous and so lacking in scale.

On the other side of the coin though, the people we have in politics these days....ooohhh! a free suit and pair of spectacles, cameo appearances (Hugh Janus), salt and pepper sets..........at least Trump's embezzlement has a certain grandeur about it 

[Sheilbh]

Maybe this? They make cutlery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMF_Group

Yeah. I really am curious what was going on in 2016 because he ended up buying sixteen sets of metal chopsticks from WMF that year.

Also £110 on a very high-end pencil sharpener

Yes, I have greatly enjoyed finding out about what he spent the money on. So mundane, so ridiculous and so lacking in scale.

On the other side of the coin though, the people we have in politics these days....ooohhh! a free suit and pair of spectacles, cameo appearances (Hugh Janus), salt and pepper sets..........at least Trump's embezzlement has a certain grandeur about it 

Yes - also the Taylor Swift tickets with Labour cabinet minister were going for with indecent haste.

It is bad, but even the most expensive thing was the £150k campervan which is a lot of money but a little underwhelming. I look at this and think Donald Trump wouldn't even get out of bed for that:


Edit: Incidentally reports are that may be sold in a police auction.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It would make a good exhibit in a museum of British corruption.

[Sheilbh]

Along with Martin Bell's white suit, Marcia Williams' lavender notepad and the duck house.

As I say this may not happen but if Reform lose with all the other points - I can't help but feel the turning point was when Jenrick (and Braverman and Zahawi) defected I can only assume people in Reform thought that would signal gravitas/readiness for office while I think it just signaled they're the same as the parties they're trying to replace.

(On Marcia Williams very much enjoy the niche tweeter who's been doing Harold Wilson edits for the youth )

[Sheilbh]

It would make a good exhibit in a museum of British corruption.

Also his umbrella spending is highly relatable - especially for a Scot.

He bought three very expensive fancy umbrellas. Then the spreadsheet just has "five further umbrellas (brand unknown)"

[Richard Hakluyt]

Umbrellas are very important to me as well, living in Lancashire. I'm still searching for the perfect mix of weight, canopy size, portability and wind resistance. A good topic of conversation if our paths ever cross 

[crazy canuck]

For many years, there was a store in Vancouver called the Umbrella Shop.  All it sold was umbrellas.  It was marvellous.  The two of you would've loved it.

[Sheilbh]

I do like a good one. But I also identify a lot with, I assume, him losing/leaving behind a lot of brollies, at least that's how I read three fancy umbrellas and five subsequent cheaper ones

I do have a nice umbrella and nice sunglasses but at the cheaper end of nice because I know I will eventually forget/lose them