It’s too early to write off Advance UK as the party that can unite the right
GILLIAN DYMOND
THE comments under Kathy Gyngell’s speech at the Advance UK conference are split largely between two positions. There are those who – either because they still have faith in Nigel Farage as a charismatic leader or because they believe that only Reform UK is capable of defeating an opportunistic alliance of Greens, Lib Dems and Labour – see Ben Habib’s party as a threat to the nation’s last hope of reversing the decline and demoralisation of past decades. Others are convinced that Reform, if elected, will squander that last hope by failing to tackle the root cause of our problems: the corruption of our constitution and the surrender of representative government to supranational organisations and quangos.
Why, since I recognise the dangers posed by tactical voting, am I firmly in the second camp?
Firstly, there is the question of Farage’s record. He has been a charismatic leader for a long time. I first heard of him in the 1990s in Christopher Booker’s Sunday Telegraph column. When he was elected to the European Parliament as a member for UKIP I enjoyed hearing him give ‘what for’ to the assembled Eurocrats. By the early 2000s I had joined UKIP myself.
Within a couple of years our Newcastle branch, led by Rodney Atkinson, seceded from the party. Atkinson and Richard North, a researcher for Booker and for UKIP who had been a frequent visitor to our group during the Metric Martyrs’ case, gave up their membership, both having had problems with Farage. Both are men with strong views who have a lot to offer a genuinely patriotic party.
Since then Farage has repeatedly shown himself either unwilling or unable to work with strong characters of this kind: the very people who will be needed if the nation is to stand up against the supranational powers intent upon turning it into a province of their global empire. His subsequent treatment of Rupert Lowe and his childishly flippant reaction to Ben Habib’s resignation from Reform confirmed his unsuitability as a leader.
Farage’s record to date – his serial undermining of people committed to extricating the country from the tangled web inherited from previous governments and, in particular, his failure to capitalise on the Brexit vote – is not encouraging. All the evidence suggests that this is, at best, an opportunistic man who has no intrinsic values strong enough to overcome the temptations of power; or, at worst, who may have enough old bones rattling around in his cupboard to make him an easy candidate for corruption.
What has he actually achieved, since entering Parliament, other than ridding himself of his party’s most impressive MP? As an Independent, Lowe has gone on to set up an inquiry into the rape gangs; he has united those determined to halt our national decline in a movement to Restore Britain, polling them for their opinions and asking questions in Parliament on their behalf, and he has shown the country just what a good MP can mean to his constituents, even setting up a party to run in local elections under the banner of Yarmouth First.
What has Farage done in comparison?
Well, he has appeared prolifically on GB News. Perhaps that is where he should stay since his considerable talents are better suited to the media than to Ten Downing Street. Perhaps he knows this himself. Should he win the next general election, he might, in a nightmare scenario, cede the premiership to Zia Yusuf.
After all, he appears to be convinced that an Islamic majority is the inevitable future of this country, and actually said on the Winston Marshall podcast in November 2024: ‘If we politically alienate the whole of Islam, we will lose.’
What, precisely, does he consider would result in the alienation of Islam? Would this include a move to ban sharia? To outlaw cousin marriage?
This is the question: should I feel obliged to vote against a party which is closely in tune with my values and my hopes for my children and grandchildren, taking a chance instead on one led by a man with a long record of stirring up discord and who has shown no evidence that he can assemble a team fit for the gargantuan task of restoring our institutions to working order? Who is, in addition, indiscriminately hoovering up prospective candidates for election from all the discredited parties, including some Conservatives whose past views, and in some cases actions, are in direct conflict with the priorities of grass-roots members of Reform?
So this is my second reason for supporting Advance, as it sets up branches throughout the country: unless rebellious back-benchers force Labour to throw in the towel before they absolutely have to, it is more than three years until the next general election. By then, many things may have changed. If the long-expected financial crash intervenes, it may be that a national emergency will be declared, and the tattered remnants of our constitution tossed to the winds.
It is noteworthy that Reform UK, after falling from its peak in the polls, is failing to regain momentum. This is partly because many former Labour voters are moving from ‘don’t know’ to the Greens or the Lib Dems, but a party which had truly seized the public mood would not be stuck in the doldrums.
David Starkey, an indefatigable campaigner for the restoration of our constitution, has told audiences of Reform supporters that he is much more impressed by the party’s membership than its leaders. That is a view shared by many. Advance UK is steadily gaining support, and Restore Britain, together with Rupert Lowe and his team, will come increasingly under the spotlight as their independent rape-gang inquiry results in private prosecutions funded by a public contemptuous of government’s failure to seek justice against the rapists’ allies in positions of power.
What could be better than for Habib and Lowe to come together in a party with a programme acceptable both to those who cannot trust Reform, and to the many members of Reform who are becoming more than a little dubious about the direction the party is taking, and who, when their membership comes up for renewal, will let it drop? Add to them the millions of eligible voters who since the betrayal of Brexit (which Farage did nothing to oppose, or even recognise) have not felt it worth casting their ballot. With a little help from Elon Musk, they might be made aware that there is a party more responsive to their needs than Reform, and vote accordingly.
It is too soon to dismiss a party as promising as Advance UK on the assumption that Reform is our one remaining hope. Everything is still to play for.
This article (It’s too early to write off Advance UK as the party that can unite the right) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Gillian Dymond
Featured image: The Bowlerhat Farmer, Facebook
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