Good news. The Overton Window is moving and we are helping move it.

What Reform's latest intervention is really about

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The ‘Overton Window’ in British politics is now firmly on the move. And we are helping move it. That’s the conclusion you’d draw were to look at the very latest announcements to rock British politics.

On Friday night, Nigel Farage and Reform UK used The Times to trail their radical new policies on illegal migration and the border crisis, making clear the aim of any future Reform government would be “mass deportations”.

Reform laid out a series of policies that mark a radical and perhaps permanent departure from the status-quo that has governed this country for decades.

The policies, as I pointed out on X, include: leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, the ECHR; scrapping Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act, which enshrines the ECHR into UK law; derogate from the postwar refugee convention; criminalise illegal migration; detain and deport anybody who arrives in Britain illegally with no right to bail or appeal; introduce a new statutory duty on the Home Secretary to deport; build new detention centres; introduce a new voluntary returns scheme for illegal migrants, including a £2,500 offer to leave Britain via a new App; and introduce a range of new data sharing methods and offences to further deter illegal migrants.

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Predictably, all this sparked a complete meltdown among members of the elite class, who are already rushing to debate the costs and delivery of such a programme.

But in doing so, they miss a much bigger and more profound point about what is now unfolding in the UK, and which this announcement from Reform, a party that’s comfortably ahead in the national polls, makes crystal clear.

The Overton Window in the UK is now firmly on the move. It is being radically and rapidly reshaped, as each week replaces the last, as each day comes and goes.

What do I mean by ‘Overton Window’? I mean the range of ideas and policies that are considered politically and socially acceptable to discuss and take seriously.

Anything outside the Overton window, in sharp contrast, is considered “radical”, “extreme”, “irresponsible”, “unthinkable”, or “impossible”.

Which is why, in turn, the political establishment has only ever focused on ideas and policies that fall inside this window, which they think appeals to voters.

But who defines and tightly controls this Overton Window, you might ask?

The establishment. The expert class. The dominant political regime that has presided over the most important and influential institutions for the last half-century.

The Uniparty, legacy media, universities, public bodies, and all those in the elite class who shape and police what they consider to be the parameters of acceptable debate.

For lack of a better word, the Gatekeepers.

But now, today, thanks to the visible failure of the policies they have pursued, thanks to all the chaos and carnage that has followed deliberate and extreme policies like mass immigration and open borders, the Overton window is now rapidly expanding so that what was previously considered unacceptable is becoming entirely acceptable.

Just look at all we are witnessing, and all that is changing at rocket speed.

A policy of mass deportations is no longer outside the Overton Window. Fully leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, a policy that I predict will be supported by both the Tories and Reform at the next election, is no longer outside the Overton Window. And overhauling the legacy of the Blairite revolution, including the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act, is no longer outside the Overton Window.

On the contrary, such is the dire state of the country that if you calmly explain to the British people that overhauling all these things —as we have advocated—is now crucial to regaining control of our broken borders, to deporting foreign criminals, to ending two-tier justice, and to reasserting our status as a self-governing nation-state with control over its own destiny, then, suddenly, they are no longer out in the cold.

They are debates that can be won, they are positions, as reflected in the polling, that are often supported by large majorities of the population. And they are all examples of how the Overton Window is now expanding massively, to include the once thinkable.

And why is this? I’d suggest two reasons.

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Firstly, because the liberal consensus that’s been imposed on this country, a consensus that was only ever supported by a 5-10 per cent elite minority, has failed.

It has completely failed.

Everybody outside London, Oxford, and Cambridge can see this —from our dire rates of economic growth to our broken borders, from our divided and increasingly fractious communities to our collapsing rates of public trust in the system.

The liberal consensus has visibly weakened, not strengthened, our country.

And only a completely deluded member of the elite class would try and argue Britain is a stronger, healthier, and more unified nation because of these policies.

And, secondly, which is where we come in, the Overton Window is shifting because the terms of debate have also changed in profound ways.

The Gatekeepers are no longer in control. They are no longer in charge. And they are no longer the only ones with serious influence.

Today, it is now new media, like us, that is able to circumvent legacy media and the Gatekeepers by taking arguments, evidence, and information straight to the people.

Clearly, it’s not only about us. There is now a rich, vibrant, and growing ecosystem of podcasts, Substacks, YouTube channels, new universities, new publishers, and more that is directly challenging, and often outflanking, the traditional Gatekeepers.

But take this platform, as just one example.

Thanks to your support, we can now reach 700,000 people directly on social media, with roughly 22 million views on Facebook each month, and millions more reading our pieces and digesting our content across social media.

The time when the Overton Window was tightly controlled and policed through only four television channels, BBC Radio 4, and just two political parties who agree with one another on the big issues of the day, in other words, is over.

It’s done. Those days are gone and they are not coming back.

Instead, we are in the age of insurgents and disruptors who are now thriving because, let’s be honest, the establishment has so obviously failed.

It has failed to control the country. It has failed to deliver decent rates of growth and economic security. It has failed to make its own citizens feel safe and secure. And it has failed to do what is needed to maintain the social contract in this country by prioritising the hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding majority.

And until it does then, as we saw this weekend, and will continue to see in the weeks ahead, the Overton Window in this country will continue to move in our direction –and we will keep doing whatever we can, with your support, to keep moving it.

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