In November 2016 Donald Trump, smiling, with a thumbs up, stood in front of a typically gaudy golden lift, flanked by Arron Banks, Nigel Farage, Andy Wigmore, and Raheem Kassam.
These were the days when being seen with Donald Trump, the man people had openly sneered at the idea of being US President, was to be lime-lit at the cutting edge of something new. The so called ‘bad boys of Brexit’ had been vindicated as five months earlier the UK had indeed voted to leave the EU and ‘take back control’. Trump had just beaten Hilary Clinton and was busy making America Great Again.
People, especially the left, both here and in the US may have been horrified by both results but this group, and others around them had been dismissed, laughed at, been fought hard, and responded using new methods, strategies, and online campaigning – and they had won.
In politics never underestimate the addictive nature of over using any methods you’ve adopted when they produce great results. The trick is weening yourself off them when they don’t. Or even better, finding new ones.
While we are at it, that’s a very good summation of the whole Boris Johnson experiment.
On Tuesday evening this week, Nigel Farage, told viewers of his GBNews show that he had a hunch, based on his experience of the US Republican’s strategic skills, and campaigning methods that although polls, and commentators were predicting Trump’s party was about to suffer an electoral kicking – he believed those commentators were in for a surprise.
Arron Banks dismissed a YouGov poll suggesting Democrats ahead in 8 Senate races with a flourish:
“If you believe this you will believe in Fairies…”
Well Arron, Tinkerbelle is sorry you won’t take her calls.
Early yesterday we learned Trump’s Republicans did get ‘‘ and have lost both the House and the Senate, and there was big surprise Trump win, and even his excuse “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” won’t stop any Democrats or US journalists trying to shoe-horn the name Donald into the phrase ‘lame-duck president’
Anyone who thinks Trump will accept constraint needs to wobble their head but for those assuming he’ll double down on his unresolved Iranian adventure with more attacks, should recognise as both Trump and his vice-President JD Vance has:
“The reason we lost is the war. The President said so last night…any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
I think on the Right in the UK a similar conversation has been going on since the summer.
Whether they like it or not – I can tell you they don’t and are in denial – Reform need a change of tack and a reset of strategy. Our columnist Peter Franklin made the same point about the Conservatives. I think both are worth considering.
Even presented with a severe collective case of refusal to look facts in the face, Reform and the Tories are neck and neck in the polls, increasingly with the Tories slightly ahead.
The Tories can’t celebrate their glacial rise towards where they were polling in 2024, and Reform should be very worried – not burying their heads – about how far they have fallen in a year.
The counter is the same old, same old:
“Well polls aren’t elections, you got smashed in May, you came third in Makerfield, ITV and Channel 4 are establishment stich ups, Tim Montgomerie was a plant, George Madgwick was suspended, the uniparty is trying to force us out, so much scrutiny it’s disproportionate….etc etc.”
Now I’ve done that for a reason, not to raise a cheap laugh. There’s a serious point here and it’s once again an offer of advice; one I think might apply further than just Reform.
Nigel’s beloved tactic for awkward questions, developed from 2024, to the point where expected or anticipated heckling from infiltrators to their Conference got it flashed up on a digital screen, came direct from Trumpian campaign models, it’s pure MAGA playbook, and at first I had a sneaking admiration for them trying it. Copying DOGE was a waste of time, but this had a bold newness about it.
However, I wrote last week before I went away for a few days, that admiration for, and association with Donald Trump has run out of steam in the UK. It’s not just Republican voters who are angry with him for high fuel prices and for trusting Hegseth to do much more than make his own bed.
But here’s the key. In these mid-terms Trump wasn’t saying anything new. It was the same old style, the same whacky rambles to big crowds that are still much smaller than the mass of voters. It looked like him, but old and tired, and they clearly weren’t buying it like they did.
The Conservatives were, and at least partially, deservedly so in the same place in 2024. Saying the same things, even when true, couldn’t save them.
Rishi only got heard on a handful of things until after it was way too late:
“You name it they’ll tax it”
Yup thanks Keir, you lied and then proved him right. Even with a Liz Truss self-justifying book on the shelves, Starmer still seems the worst PM in a century, and that is up against some recent stiff Tory competition.
And he was ‘BORING’!
But he’s gone.
‘Our Andy’ looks different, sounds different and offers some thing new. I might think a lot of it is sanctimonious, hollow guff, promises he can’t deliver, and examples that he has realised he’s in way over his head but plenty of people, all with votes are giving him the benefit of the bounce.
Kemi Badenoch had ranged her formidable firepower on Starmer and by the end left him, every time they clashed, a smouldering wreck. She’s still ranging on Burnham but the palpable hits are there, she’s locked the target, but trying new plays to strike the message home: it’s not Burnham or Starmer that’s the problem but Labour, who not only cannot do what’s required, they won’t.
The Conservatives have been looking at Burnham and what they need to do to shift-change for months. Whatever Reform insist on the Conservatives ‘’, they have been doing nothing else since she came in two years ago this week. She said it would take two years to make the changes where the party might just get a hearing, well we are now where we are, and if it ends here, I’d be disappointed, but as a two year marker I’m pretty impressed.
Canons to the left of her are getting louder, canons to the right, with Reform? Not so much. Still loud but the reasons to doubt the promises and the offer just keep coming, and personnel keep resigning or leaving like some vast disappearing Madgwick trick.
I think I know why.
The mantra, the lines to feed out to hit the Tories, defend Reform, and dismiss Labour have become…..boring. Voters are getting bored with it.
Now again, this is a proffered assessment of both parties of the right, who seem completely at odds now, and no real chance of changing that. Locked in a struggle to subdue the other. It’s not gloating, when your party is on the same sort of numbers, it’s a reality check for both.
If the lines that worked in 2024 aren’t working now, change them. If the strategies that sustained you at the top of the polls, don’t seem to be doing so anymore – change them.
The Conservatives know this since Burnham arrived and bounced, and they still need to that shift in emphasis.
A crowning irony of all I’m saying is that Raheem Kassam, still not angling to be Farage’s right hand side kick in way, pointed out that the Tories had changed their banner slogan from “Stronger Economy: Stronger Borders” to “Stronger Economy: Stronger Country”. His aim was to suggest the Tories had given up caring about immigration.
Chris Philp and I tackled this question over a month ago, but here’s the point. The economy, just as it still is in the States, is the key issue. Everything flows from that. The mid terms showed this.
Trump didn’t get what he wanted, Farage didn’t get the surprise he suggested on TV, because there was nothing new on the table.
In politics, just as Reform told the Tories two years ago, at the time, being boring and irrelevant is much worse than being wrong.