After weeks of mounting scrutiny over a £5m gift received from Thailand-based billionaire Christopher Harborne, Nigel Farage resigned from his Clacton seat to stand for re-election. In true populist fashion, he described it as a battle between “the people” and “the establishment.” Many voters buy into this rhetoric. While Farage’s general approval rating has suffered somewhat because of this scandal, a survey Earlier this year it showed that nearly 40 percent of those in routine and manual occupations and 36 percent of small employers and the self-employed now support Reform. Union members are too RECITED as likely to support reform as Labour.
How is it, then, that the claim of a privately-educated former City trader who received a multi-million dollar gift from the sixth-richest living Briton to champion “ordinary people” still has any traction? This is because his notion of “the people” is deliberately vague – it includes “patriot” trade union members., sole traders “that actually keep the country working”, as well as the owners with over a dozen properties. Depending on his audience, Farage simultaneously presents Reform as “The real party of workers” and also the party that would give “pro business governance that this country has seen in modern times”.
This cross-class appeal lies at the core of Reform’s position in the polls. The glue is not just anti-immigration attitudes, but a producer a worldview that pits the “producers” (entrepreneurs and workers who generate the country’s wealth) against the “takers” (the political elite and the undeserving categories who simply benefit from it). This is it distinguishing mark of far-right populism across Europe.
But performative rhetoric aimed at winning votes is one thing; actual policymaking is another. That the messages of Reform are able to unify capital and labor does not mean that a reforming government will follow it. In fact, there are good reasons to expect otherwise.
As I show in a recent research paperthe party cadre is largely drawn from the ranks of the professional managerial class (52 percent) and the petty bourgeoisie (39 percent). Some of them may see themselves as working class, for example landlords Sian Astleycouncilor and Greater Manchester mayoral candidate offended by Labor suggestion landlords should not be classed as “working people”. But we can see Reform has recruited remarkably few candidates with a genuine working-class vocation – much like the mainstream parties it purports to oppose.
Of the party economic agenda it is not even pro-worker. Her pro-business policies range from cutting corporate tax and raising the VAT registration threshold to deregulation of the fossil fuel and financial industries – sectors that happen to make up many of DonATionS taken from Reforma. The party now proposes tax exemptions for overseas income and capital gains.
When it comes to workers’ wages, job security or affordable housing, nothing is offered hostage to eliminate income tax for overtime over 40 hours per week. In fact, the “workers’ party” MPs unanimously opposed the Employment Rights Bill, despite Reform voters agreeing to key provisions of the bill, such as banning zero-hours contracts, protecting against unfair dismissal or providing statutory sick pay for all workers. The leaders of the reform vowed also vowed to scrap the tenants’ rights bill if passed.
The only piece of legislation the party has drafted so far is the Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill, which would bring tax cuts on crypto capital gains. Farage personally lobbied the governor of the Bank of England to abandon plans for a state-issued cryptocurrency that would compete with that issued by Tether, a company that is partly owned by Christopher Harborne. The bill has now been REMOVE from the party website.
The record of the reform in local government is even more indicative of where its priorities may lie. Not only do they have Reform-led councils scrapped net zero targets, but its national leadership has repeatedly pledged legalize fracking. According to Richard Tice“It is our patriotic duty to use our energy treasure.” Perhaps it was this “patriotic duty”. RECITED prompted Andrea Jenkyns, the Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, to contact US fracking company Heyco Energy after a major gas discovery in Lincolnshire’s Gainsborough Trough to ask how it “can help find your last gas in my county”. But how “patriotic” is a policy that faces widespread opposition not only among them the general public but also agricultural communitydue to water and air quality as well as potential earthquakes and warming effects?
In other areas of policy making, such as social care, advice led by the Reform in Derbyshire AND Lancashire tried to close care homes and day care centers, with residents moving into the private sector. In the latter case, reform advisers (which include co-owner of a private care provider) faced enough grassroots opposition to it eventually put their plans on holdbut the future of those care homes and their residents still hangs in the balance.
Overall, whether we look at the Reform party’s elites, donors, economic policies or local government practices, what we find is a huge discrepancy with its claims to be on the side of “the people” and against the “establishment”. If we scratch the rhetorical surface, we discover a party based on the petty bourgeoisie, but led by wealthy elites connected to financial capital and the fossil fuel industry. Wasn’t the whole point of the Reform, that they would be different? That they would be an alternative to the establishment and not the political vehicle of a faction of it? Perhaps not running a candidate in this by-election is a missed opportunity for other parties to expose this major contradiction at the heart of Farage’s political project.
(Further reading: Ed Balls: Burnham can’t miss this chance to tackle regional inequality)
