We may be horrified at what’s happening in America but we shouldn’t be complacent and think something similar couldn’t possibly be seen on this side of the Atlantic. Reform UK Ltd is neck and neck in the polls with the two traditional main parties. Their membership at 200,000 is 50% greater than the Tories and about two thirds of Labour’s. They may have only five MPs who are usually in turmoil but they’re not an insignificant force. Labour perhaps should start taking Reform seriously as their main opposition, as Richard Tice, the party's millionaire energy and foreign-policy spokesman, claims.
Reform isn’t a proper political party in the traditional sense. It’s a limited company, the latest vehicle for Farage to promote himself, something he does it by harvesting protest votes from those unhappy in the modern world, with all its technological complexity, who want to return to the 1940s again when everything was simple and could be understood.
The BBC claim that the party is split with a poll suggesting a third of Reform voters believe the party would fare better under a different leader, but the same amount believe that the party would do worse. The survey also suggested that Farage's net favourability with Reform voters had fallen since the row with fellow Reform MP Rupert Lowe broke out into the open.
If Farage quit, the party would sink in the polls, just as UKIP has done although it’s still a functioning (barely) political organisation with a website and just under 4,000 members trying to rekindle the glory days of 2016. He would quite probably start another party within a few months, it is after all, the one thing he’s good at. His political journey has left a trail of defunct or nearly defunct parties in his wake.
Let’s not pretend Reform couldn’t have a big impact in the May elections and in the next general election. There is a substantial section of modern Britain, although I suspect it is now close to its limit, that is intolerant of foreigners or openly racist and stupid enough to think a man like Farage could lead this country to a better place.
In that respect, are we really that different to America? It isn’t the demagoguery that is to blame, every nation has them, it’s the inability in millions of voters to recognise a demagogue when he's on their TV screens pumping out a lot of divisive rhetoric.
Farage, like Donald Trump, doesn’t tolerate dissent or criticism. Ben Habib, a former deputy leader (what a job, eh?) quit the party citing "fundamental differences" with Farage. This is behind a lot of the discontent inside Reform with some complaining the party hasn't yet been 'democratised.' I wouldn't worry about that, under Farage it will never happen. He doesn't think party policy is something painfully developed through endless debate and argument to cover as many different opinions as possible. Policy is what he says it is at any given moment.
That way he can keep changing it to suit different factions, which is how the party membership remains ‘united’ behind him. The difficulties arise once you’re in power, as Trumps followers are now discovering. Policy in the US at present is a chaotic affair, swinging wildly between bizarre press conferences and implementation in the field. Literally, nobody knows what’s going on.
Reform UK has recently seen 12 regional chairs leave over policy differences after 'vetting' by party chairman Zia Yusuf (another multi-millionaire). Some have resigned over the issue of "mass deportations" which they want to see happening, something that even Nigel Farage has called a "political impossibility". This is the problem when you set out to persuade voters you have simple solutions to complicated issues.
And this leads me back to America.
Human rights in the USA
In connection with the several hundred Venezuelans forcibly deported to a supermax prison in El Salvador last weekend, despite having been convicted of no no crime in America, I had a look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was adopted by the UN in 1948.
Article 9 is this:
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
It also declares in Article 5 that: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Unfortunately, the UDHR isn’t a treaty which any country signed but being a UN document, it should carry some weight. Trump and his administration have simply ignored it all
Now, have a look at this report from Time magazine. One of the men deported is a gay barber, definitely not a gang member and cried for his mother during his unlawful detention. This is how repressive regimes get started.
Pick on one group, in this case members of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (Train of Aragua, a region in Venezuela where the gang originated in a prison). It’s obvious these men are very dangerous and a threat to any society. Nobody could sympathise with them, could they? Once this is established, all you need to do is declare someone a gang member, based on a tattoo for example or the word of a racist border control agent, and ship them off to El Salvador without any due process.
This is precisely the sort of thing that happened to Jews, gypsies and other minorities in Germany under Hitler from 1933 onward, progressively getting more horrific. This was the reason the UDHR was adopted in the first place.
There is zero empathy with other people whether they be foreigners or fellow citizens.
Farage is right, mass deportation is politically impossible and in most Western democracies it's also legally impossible, or should be.
In the USA we are about to find out if it is or not. These are worrying times.
