ON MONDAY Ben Habib, political campaigner and erstwhile Deputy Leader of Reform UK, formally announced his much-anticipated new political party Advance UK. After resigning from Reform, having fallen out with its leader Nigel Farage, Habib has hinted for months that he was setting up a new party. In a highly volatile political landscape with so many so desperate for change, opinion will be divided between those who see this as a calamity, splitting the ‘protest’ opposition and so ensuring continued globalist hegemony, and those who see it as both necessary and perhaps instrumental.
In such dark times, Wycliffe sees it as a duty to offer Christian hope where he can, so in that spirit let’s list the objections to Advance UK and deal with each in turn.
The first is that Advance UK simply won’t have the brand strength to make political headway.
It is a truism that the first-past-the-post electoral system is exceptionally harsh on start-up parties. Even in the friendlier proportional system, it takes a long time and much money to build a political brand. It took over 20 years for Ukip to advance from a fringe movement into a mainstream party that severely threatened the established parties, and it is highly unlikely that Advance UK would be in such a position in three to four years.
Second,although it’s true that politicians and political activists often vastly over-estimate political engagement amongst the general population, we live in a time of unprecedented political and electoral volatility. For all that the rocketing popularity of Reform UK owes a substantial amount to Nigel Farage’s own political and personal brand, even before he voted himself in as leader the only partially known Reform brand was already gaining significant electoral traction, such is the electorate’s desperation for change.
Third, momentum is certainly with Reform UK and it would be a brave man who suggested that Advance UK could overtake them in the short or even medium term, but parties do not have to be electorally successful to move the dial significantly. If you think of the three most successful political movements since the fall of Margaret Thatcher, along with New Labour you would list Ukip and the Greens. The latter two both shifted political policies in directions that at the time were truly radical without achieving significant breakthroughs at Westminster as more established parties started to take their agendas seriously and in time adopted them. (Though one must add as a caveat that both first achieved success in European elections under the now-closed avenue of proportional representation.) In such a volatile environment, even if Advance UK starts to gnaw away at Reform UK’s vote share to a moderate degree, it may stop Reform’s current march towards the ‘soggy centre’ ground.
Lastly, in the much longer term we are likely to be presented after the next election with a shattered political landscape quite unlike anything we have seen before. As long predicted by Peter Hitchens, we are facing the simultaneous collapse of not one but two major political parties – the Tories and Labour. Who knows what opportunities will present themselves under those circumstances? This is particularly so if, as many fear, Reform fails in government due to its lack of a broad talent base, failing to build a cabinet with more than one member: Reform may prove to be a comet amongst the stars, burning brightly before just as quickly fading into obscurity.
However, Ben Habib has been very naïve in making Advance UK wholly democratic and inclusive from the outset. Whatever issues one may have with Nigel Farage’s authoritarian style and the pseudo-democratic nature of Reform UK, he certainly does speak and act with significant experience of the problems in building a fringe party and stopping its brand being polluted. Those who first join a new, radical movement are almost by definition political obsessives and some may hold deeply unpleasant or crank-like views that the media can use to pollute the brand. While it is still small, the party may also be subjected to tactics of ‘entryism’ from highly organised, truly extremist groups. Even the threat of brand pollution may stop heavy hitters with name recognition – Suella Braverman, David Frost, for example – joining such a party: they may not wish to be associated with the likes of Tommy Robinson, whose reputation, though improving, remains toxic in many quarters.
Time will tell on this one. The highly democratic structure of Advance UK is certainly impressive from a theoretical standpoint and, if it was an already mature party, would knock authoritarian Reform out of the park. Whether it is good for a start-up is another matter. Habib’s statement that the party will become formally registered only once a floor of 30,000 members is reached may help mitigate the issue here but nonetheless the risk of attracting undesirables in its infancy is a significant downside.
Thus, attracting big-hitters and high-profile defectors may well prove a significant problem and this may count as a missed opportunity. One of Reform UK’s most significant weaknesses is the inability of any political Icarus to withstand the heat that comes with flying too high: if you so much as threaten to eclipse the radiant glow of its Sun-King leader, the wax on your wings will melt and instantly vaporise. Advance UK would pose a much more serious threat if it did manage to attract some big names who judge that, based on past behaviour, associating themselves with Farage was little better than a death wish. Consequently, as the election neared, it would look like a more convincing government in waiting than Reform UK ever could. Of course, Ben Habib may surprise us over the next few days with the names he has already attracted, but the decision of Rupert Lowe not to join is a significant initial disappointment, and others may remain wary, preferring to watch and wait.
Even so, it’s not all doom and gloom. Looked at in another way Advance UK may do a great service to British politics: although it may or may not be to the party’s advantage that it welcomes virtually anyone, it will at least provide a democratic outlet for those, particularly from the working classes, who currently feel outcasts even from Reform UK. There is much talk these days of a drift towards civil war and if Advance UK helps in stopping such a baleful development it will have been all worthwhile.
Looking to the long term, Advance UK’s far more democratic structure may prove more robust and attractive than virtually any other political player on the market if it can survive its start-up phase.
Of all the arguments against starting a new party, that Advance UK will just split the ‘right-wing’ vote is perhaps the weakest of all. For decades the ghastly Tories survived on the mantra that ‘If you didn’t vote Tory you’d get Labour’ or ‘a vote for Ukip/Reform is a wasted vote.’ Large portions of the electorate are in no mood to have their votes harvested in such cynical ways any more and expect to able to hold parties to account if they stray too far from what they want. There is a simple way Reform UK can stop its vote being split – stay true to what its supporters want.
Many may counter that you cannot win an election based solely on the support of True Believers, and Reform has to attract those from the centre ground. Even here, the existence of a political party on its right flank may help it do so due to a regrettably eternal but powerful factor that intrudes into English political life – snobbery. British, certainly English, voting patterns were until very recently powerfully connected to one’s class identity and although probably not the factor it once was (who are we kidding? Class is still immensely important in English culture), supporting a ‘low status’ political movement like Reform UK associated with working-class Red Wall patriots may make some voters uneasy in the Tory shires, even if they broadly agree with the party’s agenda. If Advance UK’s base proves to be built on the kind of voters Richard Tice describes as ‘that lot’, some of the more snobbish members of the middle class may feel better at voting for Reform – at least they still have someone to look down on. Nigel Farage’s recent interesting comment, warning the British Establishment that they had better support him or one day the alternative would look at lot worse, seems to suggest he senses this. Advance UK may well attract some voters who may either be totally alienated from politics or may have voted Reform instead, but as a consequence Reform UK may pick up votes from other more well-to-do demographics without having to drift too far to the centre.
So, when all is considered, why not join Advance UK? I have.
