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Good evening all. I’ve finally returned from Reform’s conference in Birmingham and, as promised, I wanted to share a few detailed thoughts to our most committed readers about where things are going, the challenges facing Reform, the direction of British politics, and what I think is going to happen next, including issues around defections, the economy, Labour, and lots more.
There are five key points:
Reform will not struggle with public demand. All political revolts are about the demand-side and the supply-side. Is there public demand for what you are offering? And are you supplying that demand with something compelling and credible? In the near and medium term, public demand for Reform will only increase. This newsletter was the first platform in the country to predict Nigel Farage and Reform would inherit the post-Brexit ‘realignment’ of British politics from the Tories, which is now happening. It’s just that instead of Brexit cutting across the traditional Left versus Right divide, it is now mass immigration, broken borders, and, increasingly, the question of our ECHR membership that is doing this. And this process will become entrenched over the next six months. Why? Because Labour will not solve the illegal or legal immigration crisis. The economy will get worse, potentially even suffering a severe crisis (as Liam Halligan and I discussed here). Living standards and the country will continue to decline. Food prices and energy bills will rise even higher this winter. Neither Kemi Badenoch nor Robert Jenrick will save the Tories. And so all this will continue to generate public demand and political space for Reform. People are not voting for Farage because they love Farage (about 15% do). They are turning to Farage because he is the only alternative to this dreary status-quo (which also brings enormous risks, as I discuss below). Nonetheless, I would not be surprised to see Reform above 40% of the national vote by Christmas. Which brings me to point 2: the challenge will not come from a lack of demand but the issue of supply.
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