What might a Reform government look like?

by Howard Porter

Until quite recently, this is a is a question I never imagined I would need to ask, not with any degree of seriousness in any case. I imagine most people reading this feel the same way. True, Farage & Co have taken a dip in the polls recently but their messaging remains strong; they’ve dragged the Tories to the right and there is still a serious possibility that Reform might be in government, in some capacity or other, after the next general election. One thing's for sure, we can't afford to be complacent. "What might a Reform government look like?" is no longer a purely hypothetical question.

But, before we look at some possibilities, we need to acknowledge some major caveats: political predictions are notoriously difficult and, especially in the case of Reform, the details of their policy offer is very hard to pin down. So, what they say, what they intend and what they will actually be able to do presents us with a degree of uncertainty that makes any sort of prediction just about impossible.

So, I'm not going to make any predictions. Rather I'm going to offer some possibilities based on the things they have said, both recently and in the past, and what we see happening elsewhere, especially in Trump's US. After all, this provides the far-right here with a convenient role model which we know they want to emulate. But again, a caveat is necessary: the history and institutional arrangements here in the UK are very different from those in the US which will present Reform with their own challenges but also present us with some of our own specific vulnerabilities.

The possibility of Reform achieving an absolute majority might have receded somewhat but the possibility of them being a part of, or even leading, a coalition government with the Tories (and, perhaps, Rupert Lowe's Restore) remains a distinct possibility. Either way, it will be an inexperienced government and, as we have seen in those local authorities that have already been capture by Reform, their knowledge of "how things work' and their ability to run the machinery of government is extremely limited.

Their policies pronouncement tend to be symbolic and performative more than anything else: claiming savings they are not responsible for, removing flags and threatening action on areas that are largely, or even completely outside of their responsibility. Nevertheless, they have been able to shift the culture within the areas they run and have done damage to a range of policies, especially where the environment and climate change are concerned.

But, being in charge of central government will open up a whole raft of possibilities for them even with pushback from the Civil Services, the courts, the House of Lords and elsewhere they they will have their hands on the levers of power and although major legislative changes may take time, we can be sure that change is going to come – and not in a good way!.

However, they will try to hit the ground running with plenty of bluster and media coverage. Expect the right-wing media to amplifying their messaging and the BBC to be even more cowed than it is now.

But it would be a mistake to think they will be ineffective and take the view that all we have to do is wait for them to collapse internally. There may well be fall outs, scandals and everything else we have seen in the US but this doesn't guarantee their collapse. In fact, it might even make them push harder to bring about the changes they want to see.

So, taking a longer term view, what might this look like?

Let's start with administration. They will seek to reduce the size of the state and reorganise the Civil Service making services delivery more chaotic and inefficient. Some areas, like the Environment Agency, Equality and Human Rights Commission will be greatly reduced or may even disappear altogether or have their terms of reference so restricted that they become either meaningless or, perversely, the opposite of what they current remit is.

Over time, expect them to centralise the state even more and strengthen executive power with the 'leader' taking a more and more prominent role in decision-making. Parliament will be gradually sidelined. In fact, it might be easier to achieve this in the UK than in the US which at least has a written constitution.

The economy:
This is a hard one to call since their existing policy pronouncements are so incoherent and contradictory. Tax giveaways to the rich, reductions in public spending and fantasy measures to 'Make Britain Great Again' may well backfire as confidence in the economy takes a hit.

We can be pretty sure they will  attack 'green' industries (currently about the only part of the economy that is growing) and promote polluting and fossil fuel industries – time to pay the fossil fuel piper.  

How markets respond will be crucial: a negative response could lead to a falling pound and, with memories of Liz Truss's unfunded tax cuts fresh in investors' minds, we can expect pressure on the bond market. In other areas, there might be enthusiasm for Reform's promise to cut regulations but it is equally likely to unleash a spate of cowboy speculation.

Education:
Expect an attack on 'woke' teachers and steps to rewrite the school curriculum to be more 'patriotic' with a far less focus on creative subjects and any form of critical thinking (if that is even possible given the last government's attack on the arts and humanities). Instead, there will be a far more instrumental focus on producing a passive, patriotic and ignorant next generation. Schools will become more disciplinarian.

Universities will come under a similar attack, with defunding of whole areas of research, the promotion of wacky ideas (under the rubric of 'freedom of speech') and bullying of academics, especially those working in areas such as climate science. University finance will come under even more pressure with a further reduction of overseas students. Some universities will close.  

The environment:
There will be a wholesale retreat from any form of action to tackle climate change and wider depletion of the natural world. New investment in fossil fuels (with generous tax breaks), restrictions on renewables and carte blanche permissions to just about any environment destroying, profit seeking, get quick merchants to do as they will.

Employment:
Reform want to repeal the Employment Rights Act and the Equalities Act which will increase friction in the workplace and reducing workers' rights. We might also expect an uptick in unemployment as the economy begins to tank and as 'green' jobs are undermined. Increased unemployment will also be blamed on lazy workers and, of course, foreigners taking 'our' jobs.

Consumer protection and market regulation:
Any lack of economic performance will be blamed on over-regulation so expect a reduction in consumer protections leading to more and more dodgy goods entering the market and lower standards in, for example, new housing developments. Reform's overall approach is typically neoliberal, favouring less regulation, leaving it up to the market to freely correct itself. Ironically, while Reform say they want to stop "rip-off Britain", such a laissez faire approach opens the floodgates to just about any spiv wanting to make a quick buck at everybody else expense.

Health:
People like Nigel Farage have long been advocates of an American style insurance based health service but they have a problem. Reform voters value the NHS as much as everybody else so a full-frontal attack is unlikely in the short term. But that doesn't mean that the NHS is safe. Far from it. Large parts of health provision are already provided by private companies and, as the argument will go, we need even more from them to increase provision which the government can't afford on its own. Again. the ground has already been prepared by past governments so, really, it is only a matter of degree and branding. In time, the NHS will become nothing more than a logo and expect a long term move towards an insurance based model, sold to the public “to take the pressure off the NHS”. As always, the best way to subvert as system is to cover it with a thick layer of deceit and hypocrisy. If you want to know what this looks like, look no further than dentistry.  

Policing and the justice system:
Reform has pledged to recruit 40,000 extra police officers and build yet more prisons. What's more, none of this is cheap and it's hard to see how the courts will be able to deal with all the subsequent arrests. As a part of their "anti-woke" agenda, we can expect more community tensions as they attempt to implement their "zero tolerance" policing with more stop and search

Civil liberties:
Reform won't need to do a great deal to make the system even more repressive but I'm sure they will give it a pretty good try. In the short term, expect a harsh response to any opposition on the streets, and a crack down on protest, especially those upholding civil liberties and environmental action.

In time, a developing narrative of a 'threat from within' may will lead to the arrest of Green and left-wing activists, trade unionists and all those standing up to the governments subversion and gradual dismantlement of democracy. As we've seen in the US, the far-right is ramping up its campaign to demonise the left and we can expect the same playbook to be used here in the UK. Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights will, they hope, pave the way for draconian laws to victimise anybody they don't like but it will also put the UK outside of the general European consensus and may well undermine the Northern Ireland peace process and our relationship with the EU and other European countries more generally.

Migration and racism:
Since this is a major part of their schtick, expect a gradual ramping up of hostility to all non-white people. Starting with asylum seekers and recent migrants, some form of ICE-style rounding up and deportations are highly likely.

Expect them to start with the low hanging fruit of irregular immigration (people crossing the channel in small boats, for example) but then extending to other groups.

Reform and the rest of the right are currently trying to outbid each other for the dubious merit of having the most ethno-nationalist policies. Abolishing Indefinite Leave to Remain, the introduction the sort of repressive and intimidating measures we've seen carried out by ICE in the US and building a climate of fear in communities of colour will have a chilling affect on society as a whole. We can expect any protest to be ruthlessly suppressed and it will also impact the economy as skilled people of colour are either deported or decide to leave the UK.  

We can't expect it to end there though. Reform have an interest in maintaining the sense of threat and danger so expect an increasingly desperate and brutal crackdown by authorities which will be accompanies by embolden street fascsists harassing people of colour and terrorising neighbourhoods. Anybody standing up to them will be branded as internal enemies and threatened.  

How will institutions respond?
Responses will vary from reluctant capitulation as a survival mechanism to eager adaptation. Either way, the quality of public discourse, the public realm and all goods and services will deteriorate with responsibility for any negative consequences to government policy being blamed on 'subversive elements', 'saboteurs' and the left/liberal establishment. It will take time but, gradually, institutions will be purged, only loyalists will be employed and liberal democracy will become a thing of the past. It will become harder and harder for opposition voices to be heard and, ironically, as things fail to improve, or even become worse for ordinary people, the blame will be increasingly placed at the door of the silenced opposition. The longer they remain in power, the harsher things will become; supression turns into repression and, eventually, out and out oppression.

Fascism won't arrive overnight. It is a process. How fast this happens and how far will depend a lot on the press and how we, as citizens respond to a Reform in government. Unfortunately, we can take very little encouragement from the press since our media is dominated by right-wing outlets run by billionaires. Even public service broadcasters like the BBC take their lead from and are led by the right-wing press. Those areas that remain independent will come under increased pressure, as we saw in Hungary under Victor Orbán while right-wing trolls will continue to undermine any faith in truth unless, that is, it comes out of the mouth of The Leader. Everything else is fake news.

I haven't covered every area here and, no doubt, there will be surprises but I hope I've given a flavour of what might be in store for is if Reform were to come to power. The very best approach, of course, is to make sure they never do.

If you have your own take on any of the issues raised here, please get in touch by emailing: compassnortherndevon@gmail.com

Howard Porter
August 2026

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Book review: The good Society And How We Make It,
by Kate Pickett

By Howard Porter

As you might expect from the co-author of The Spirit Level (with Richard Wilkinson) this book is well researched and packed with facts and figures.

The first part of the book concentrates on four areas: health, care services, education and the criminal justice system. In the second part, she explores approaches to economics and presents the practical empirical evidence for a good society focusing on things like Universal Basic Income, Citizens' Assemblies and good governance.

She paints a very convincing picture of the possibilities using already existing examples that have been implemented somewhere in the world so this is not a utopian 'what if' exercise. It is a practical plan, but this is where I have some problems with not only this book but many others that propose a new direction for society.

All the recommendations make sense but what is missing is a deep dive into the practicalities, the dirty stuff of real life politics and conflicts that are bound to come with any attempt to implementing policies that depart even a little bit from the orthodox, neoliberal order. The forces ranged against us are enormous (and well funded) and the push back that is bound to accompany any serious movement for change will be brutal.

What, for example, would we do about the bond market, international currency markets and flights of capital, let alone the predictable onslaught by the right-wing press and other media?

Also, look at the way the fossil fuel industry and its servants have done everything they can to prevent serious action on climate change or the way the media has sought to undermine a succession of Labour leaders, something they are now attempting with Zack Polanski.

Even benign figures like Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been monstered, and they are hardly anybody’s idea of radical.  

If we lived in a rational world where everybody wanted to do the best for the most people, the kind of approach suggested in The good Society And How We Make It would be obvious but that isn't our world. We live in a world of vested interests and underhanded strategies employed by those who are invested in the present system. They won't give up without a fight.

To make real progress, we need a playbook that helps us take on and defeat these forces with defensible transitional policies but, sadly, that book is yet to be written. In the meantime, please read this book. Its an optimistic step in the right direction.

Howard Porter

Kate Pickett — The Good Society - And How we make It by Kate Pickett
Published by The Bodley Head
ISBN: 9781847928726

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It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)

By Howard Porter

Political tribalism is deep seated as Peter Jones pointed out in his blog post last month but is it an anthropological inevitability or could we do politics differently?

It is undoubtedly the case that there will be allegiances that hold an emotional bond far greater than a rational analysis of a party's manifesto might justify and, of course, over time parties shift their positions but still manage to retain a core support.

But things have changed over recent years. The hold of the two tribes, Conservative and Labour, has weakened and people are now more likely to switch to other parties as the recent General Election has demonstrated. If anything, people are now less tribal than they used to be with support for third, fourth and fifth parties surging.

This broadening out of political support, I would argue, strengthens the argument for a new voting system, one based on proportionality as, clearly, a large number of voters are not adequately represented in parliament.

But large bloc politics has not gone away even if the traditional duopoly of Labour and Conservative isn't as compelling as it once was. All political parties are coalitions of ideas and, maybe, all these two political giants now have to hold them together is an abstract tribal gravity rather than a coherent ideology or political programme that all members and supporters sign up to.

Indeed, maybe one of the reasons why trust in politics (and politicians) has diminished over recent years is that Tory and Labour politicians are forced to uphold policy positions they don't really believe in but publicly espouse anyway because of the party whip, cabinet collective responsibility or, as Peter suggests, just sticking up for their tribe. What else explains Keir Starmer saying "Jeremy Corbyn would make a great prime minister" in 2019?

A political system that allows elected representatives to express their own views and make their own judgements would be closer to the ideals fundamental to liberal democracy expressed by Edmund Burke in his Speech to the Electors of Bristol made way back in 1774.

Although I think that a less tribal parliamentary system would be a healthy step towards restoring faith in politics, I don't, like some, advocate the abandonment of political parties. Yes, they need to change but they also have an important role to play in a healthy democracy.

They provide a forum for the development of a coherent range of policies to put to the electorate and can also provide a means to link ordinary people to the process of government by offering them the opportunity to join a party and help shape its direction. They also offer a shorthand, easily digested flavour of what politicians stand for, even of people don't read the manifesto (which most people don't).

It is noticeable that membership of political parties has decreased significantly since its height in the 1950s.

"Membership of political parties has been declining from its peak in the early 1950s. At that time, there were around 2.8m Conservative Party and 1m Labour Party members. Members of trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party and of the Socialist and Cooperative parties boosted the total Labour Party movement by 5m to 6m in the years after 1945 until the early 1990s, since when they started to decline to around 3.5m today." (1)

This indicates a worrying decline in political engagement and, in my view, is one reason why the population has become more detached from the processes that shape their lives. Not only have people not taken back control, they've lost what little they might of once have had through, for example, their trade union or local party membership. In the age of social media, the threats posed by malign "influencers", a lack of civic education in schools and sheer ignorance about how politics works should not be underestimated. In fact, it underlines the need to put forward practical alternatives.

Society is now far more diverse and fragmented. The old Left and right, capital versus labour paradigm that formed the rational for the two great parties no longer motivates support as it once did. There are also other dividing lines: Leaver vs Remainer is an obvious one but there are plenty of other sub-cultural divisions and interests that the two traditional parties struggle to relate to. It is significant that membership of the National Trust and the RSPB now outstrips that of political parties. In fact, it is likely that, in some areas, more people vote in the finals of Strictly Come Dancing than take part in their local elections*.

To represent this social diversity, parties need to change but our first past the post electoral system stands in the way of their evolution. There are no silver bullets but proportional representation could be a first step towards rebuilding our political culture and reconnecting people to government. It could encourage more parties to form and not rely on hidden coalitions but put everything out in the open. Being less tribal and more fluid, flexible and collegiate might also encourage more people to get involved in politics in order to pursue practical outcomes, not simply vote with the tribe.

There are many other reforms we need to introduce in order to build a revived political culture but that is for another blog. For now, I'll finish by saying that we need to make politics accessible and something we do, not something we have done to us. That won't be an easy task but it is a necessary one.

*The BBC doesn't disclose the numbers of people voting but the 2023 final had 8.8 million viewer