Reform UK’s blueprint for Britain is nasty, reckless and extreme

Nigel Farage, the reincarnated leader of Reform UK, declares that his election manifesto “is not something with which we’re going to govern the country”. Not that anyone thought any such thing was about to befall the British people, but it is just as well that this hastily collated rag-bag of populist ideas is not about to collide with reality.

In the comically unlikely event of Mr Farage becoming prime minister, Reform’s manifesto – self-styled as “Our Contract With You” – would soon be the subject of a claim for breach of contract. Aside from its inherent dishonesty about the reasons for Britain’s economic and social challenges, it is utterly unimplementable.

As with Brexit, Mr Farage’s last ruinous project, the document is a fraud on the British people. We should all do well to remember what happened last time Mr Farage said he had all the answers. The Australian-style points-based migration he advocated, for example, he now denounces as a failure. The free trade deals with large dynamic nations such as the US, India and China have not materialised. Clacton, the Essex seaside town where he wants to be elected to parliament, remains untouched by Brexit benefits.

Almost every one of the 24 pages of unaudited and unverified make-believe, have-your-cake-and-eat-it verbiage that make up the Reform manifesto contains some twisted fact, impossible promise or atavistic fantasy. It is not true, for example, that high rents and unaffordable homes have been caused by “mass migration” in the last decade or so. If that were true, then the UK would never before have experienced house price booms or rent inflation.

It is not credible for Reform UK to claim to wish to promote economic growth while targeting “net zero migration”. Mr Farage says that the six quarters of falling GDP per head prove that “we are getting poorer” and, as ever, blames immigration. Quite apart from the fact that this is an absurdly short period of time from which to draw such a conclusion, it needs to be pointed out that under the new points-based visa system, much of the inward migration to the UK is skilled and linked to relatively high earnings thresholds.

But even if it was all low-paid and unskilled labour (which is, in fact, very much needed), the fact that average GDP per head is reduced doesn’t mean that anyone already in the UK is actually worse off; it’s simply an artefact of the arithmetic. Net zero, undefined, “non-essential” migration would strangle the UK’s already sluggish economic growth, and cause Mr Farage to quickly renege on his contractual commitments to take seven million people out of income tax, and to spend more money on defence and on an NHS which he also wants to turn into a private insurance scheme, with only the very poorest being relieved of the premiums.

Ignoring Mr Farage’s fanciful pledge to find £141bn for public spending, the only radical measure that carries some potential merit is reducing the interest paid to the commercial banks by the Bank of England (effectively, the Treasury), which is overstated by at least £25bn.

The total black hole in Reform’s programme is around £38bn. As Richard Tice said so often during his presentation of his sums, that is “real cash”. There would be panic in the markets were his party ever to get remotely near to power. It would make the chaos that ensued with the Liz Truss mini-Budget look like a tea party hosted by the IFS.

When it is not indulging in fantasy, the rest of the manifesto is deeply dangerous. As an act of spite over the BBC’s entirely fair reporting during the Brexit referendum, Mr Farage now proposes, in effect, to abolish it. He wants a public inquiry into “vaccine harms” based on conspiracy theories. He denies the science of climate change. He wishes to repeal the Equalities Act and, of course, leave the European Convention on Human Rights. He would readily sack police chiefs and remove their operational independence. School curriculums would be politicised. Mr Farage is someone whom no sensible person should trust with their lunch, let alone their civil rights.

The one thing that we may trust Mr Farage about is his stated ambition “to establish a bridgehead in parliament, and to become a real opposition to a Labour government”. The general election of 2029 is his focus. He seems disinclined, at the moment, to take over an enfeebled Conservative Party but rather to destroy and replace it over the next few years. Either way, his is a nasty, reckless and extreme manifesto that no mainstream party of the right should ape, adopt or endorse. It is a poison pill.

The fight for the future of the right is well under way, and it is one that Conservatives simply cannot win by trying to agree with Mr Farage’s demands or attempting to outflank his hate-filled agenda. You cannot out-Farage Farage: he is too close to fascism and its delusions for that. Who, in their right mind, believes that, as Mr Farage once suggested, traffic jams are caused by immigration? No one should be deceived by his affable manner, faux-posh wardrobe and homely taste for English ale. He is trouble.

If the experience of the Brexit referendum and its aftermath in the past few years hasn’t taught the Tories a lesson about the dangers of flirting with the hard right, then there is little hope for them. Lacking an effective, mature and responsible opposition party on the right would be bad for Britain, too.