Breakthrough Made

Revisiting my article 'Waiting for a Breakthrough', about the SDP and Reform

Well, what a difference nine months make! Back then it seemed like a year until the next election, but Sunak took his rash gamble. All of a sudden we were thrust into a campaign before anyone was ready, and it seemed both Reform and the SDP would suffer for this. The one thing that might make a difference, Farage standing for Parliament, was denied to us. Another poor performance beckoned, with Tice's crew delivering one seat if that (probably the newly defected Lee Anderson's).

But then Nigel changed his mind.  Maybe it was all a play to get people demanding him and build some hype. Perhaps it was a genuine decision because he didn't want to let supporters down, as he claimed. Whatever, it  worked as we all knew it would. He lit a giant firecracker under the pedestrian rear-end of the election, and the mayhem began.

Reformers had largely regretted the 2019 pact with the Conservatives. They couldn't throw off the shackles and get into top gear. But this time they could. Gone was the fear of 'we'll let Labour in' or 'we'll destroy Brexit'. Brexit was across the line now and Conservative incompetence had continued at a pace, along with outright betrayals. Right wing voters, who had gone along with the Tories last time to ward off Corbyn, were  also free to let the world burn. The concept of 'zero seats' took off online, to give the Tories an electoral kicking no matter what, even if it would mean a Labour government.

'Zero seats' almost came to pass. Two thirds of their MPs became unemployed. The damage Farage has caused makes what he did to Theresa May's government look like light-bruising.  Across the country Reform won over 4 million votes, which if added to the Conservatives' 7 million would have beaten Labour's 10. More relevant of course is the Parliamentary picture. The Tories lost 251 seats they had won in 2019. Five went to Reform, but by my estimation 145 of the seats won by Labour were a result of Reform splitting the Tory vote. That is quite an impact for a small political party to have. They not only destroyed any chance the Conservatives had of winning, but with this awkward truth they have undermined Labour's performance as well. Labour may have won, but their mandate is not as secure as it seems.

Five Reform MPs are good to see, and at last someone can hold the main parties to account, and say things which are usually forbidden in the Commons. Nigel Farage being sworn into Parliament felt like a genuine watershed moment, one a lot of us had been waiting for. In his maiden speech he had a cheeky jab at the former Speaker, John Bercow, which was most satisfying.

However, it is not all plain sailing. A small rift was caused when Farage replaced his joint deputy leaders Ben Habib and David Bull with Richard Tice, the reason given that the deputy needed to be an MP. However the true reason seemed to be that the donor who had turbocharged Reform's campaign, tech entrepreneur Zia Yusuf, had dibs on the party chairman role. Tice was chairman, but needed another top position, so Habib got the boot. Habib then publicly protested this, which was also a questionable move in my opinion. To show internal disagreement so early into Reform's  Parliamentary era is not a good look. Habib said his protest 'wasn't about me', but of course it was.

The sudden arrival of Yusuf has made some uncomfortable, because his exact motives are a mystery, he appears to have bought a party position, and he is a practicing Muslim. The latter fact of course should not rule his involvement out, but given Reform's recent drift towards stronger opposition of Islamism (from Anderson and then Farage) you can understand how people might feel this is a contradiction.

But is it a contradiction? Yusuf does come across as articulate and fierce patriot. So long as a Muslim is not an Islamist who hates the country, who practices their own religion while respecting the freedom of others to practice theirs, it's fine. So long as they recognise the right for others to critique religion, or to live a Western lifestyle, there is no problem.  To approach the issue from another angle, if moderate pro-British Muslims are brought more into the fold, then the moderation of Islam may come sooner, and genuine integration may be possible. What is more worrying about Yusuf is how he's appeared out of nowhere and seems to have been given favour because of his money. He will have to earn the trust of the members.

The SDP's gains are of course more modest. Their vote tally has massively increased, however. Since the 2019 General Election, it has gone up tenfold - 3,295 to 33,811. In 2015 there were two candidates fielded achieving 125 votes. Now 122 candidates have gained over thirty-thousand votes. In less than a decade, that's an increase of nearly 3000%. In the seat Rod Liddle stood in, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, the votes accrued appear to have accounted for the Conservative loss. In six seats the SDP got over 1000 votes, saving their deposit in two. These achievements were arguably only possible because there was a tactical pact with Reform, where Reform stepped aside in six SDP target seats. Indeed in the top ten vote tallies for the SDP, Reform was not standing against them. Nevertheless, these are still good performances - the votes still needed to be earned after all, pact or no pact.  

Of course a degree of mockery appears online towards the SDP's showing. Cynics are never happy, and Labour is highly protective of the voters it thinks it owns. Nobody was under any illusion that Clouston's party would win a seat this time, but much progress towards that outcome has been made.  

It feels like a very long time since the local elections in May. Reform, still under Tice at the time, gained only two councillors. Many bemoaned this, so to think Reform have gone from two councillors to five MPs is astonishing, and shows what could be possible for the SDP in the future. The SDP gained one more councillor in the Middleton Park ward of Leeds, meaning they now have a full set of three. They even have a 'group' office, complete with a sign on the door, in the town hall.

Let us revisit some of the key points of my article nine months ago and discuss new developments.

Polling

The polling I had doubts about turned out to be correct. Not long after the article, Reform hit 13%. After the height of 19% during the campaign, where they overtook the Tories for the first time,  the final result was 14.3%. The SDP meanwhile never gets specific polling, and is stuck in the ‘other’ section.

Farage

Farage did indeed come back, and we've seen the positive results of that. Not only did he return, but he has vowed to stay as leader for the next General Election (currently scheduled for 2029). Being an MP will stop him being so flighty, although as we've seen he will make the odd visit to America and continue broadcasting on GB News. I would suggest to Reform that Nigel is seen to spent a lot of time in his Clacton constituency, as his enemies are attacking him for not doing so.

Farage delivered the best response of any party leader to the UK riots, capitalising on the weakness showed by Starmer and muted input from the Conservatives. He demonstrated a strong opposition to violence, yet an understanding of the issues surrounding it - namely unease at mass immigration, two-tier policing, and anger at British children being killed. Starmer and Sunak had made no such gesture. Many were saying Farage for the first time looked like a future Prime Minister. That day can't come soon enough.

Membership model

Reform have since said they will democratise the party so that it can have distinct local structures and expand more effectively. Quite to what extent this will happen is unclear. Habib has also pushed for this after his run-in with the leadership, demanding there be an elected deputy position similar to that of Labour's. It's an encouraging development. In the SDP Clouston has just won the leadership again, unopposed - but the beauty is he can be removed if he loses the party's confidence.

Other small parties

On the right, UKIP tried to make a pact with Reform but was denied, settling on one with the even more fringe English Democrats. UKIP won no seats, saving their deposit once. Reclaim changed tack and issued a list of pledges for other party candidates to sign up to, the reward being £5000 for their campaigns. Only four Conservatives did so, against advice, and they all lost their seats. Fox's outfit then endorsed Reform in the final days of the election campaign. Now however Fox has returned to attacking Reform since Farage distanced himself from and condemned Tommy Robinson. Realistically Farage did have to do this, in order to fight the suggestion that he was to blame for the riots or believes in street activism. It's not quite fair, but politically useful. The Heritage Party, meanwhile, stayed completely independent and stood in 41 constituencies. It received nearly 7000 votes, 708 of which were for David Kurten.

On the left, Galloway's Workers Party of Great Britain fielded 152 candidates. They, and their adjacent pro-Palestine independents, were the largely unreported success story of the election. The Workers Party won 210,194 votes. Pro-Palestine independents accrued four MPs and around 500,000 votes. If you count the now-independent Jeremy Corbyn winning his seat back, that makes five MPs - indeed Corbyn is currently in talks to form an independent group in Parliament. Wes Streeting and Jess Phillips almost lost their seat to such independents, while the spurned Faiza Shaheen prevented Labour gaining Chingford and Woodford Green.

Galloway has been in and out of Parliament since I wrote the article, having won the Rochdale by-election in the wake of Labour standing down their candidate Azhar Ali (after comments about  the Hamas attacks).  Galloway won through disquiet among the Muslim demographic  over the Gaza war, but could not survive the nationwide Labour wave four months later. Presumably Labour threw the kitchen sink at winning the seat back after their humiliation. Of course, Galloway being Galloway we've probably not seen the last of him.

The Worker's Party campaign was dogged with all sorts of allegations and unsavoury remarks from their candidates. The media has been sure to downplay their electoral performance because of the threat they pose to Labour. The threat is a good thing in a tactical sense, but it does have worrying implications for the country and its increasingly sectarian politics. It's a great shame this is where the current pressure on Labour is coming from, rather than a much more reasonable left wing party like the SDP.

Neoliberalism

I said the post-industrial North would not vote for Reform UK. This was not borne out by the election results. In the sixteen 'Red Wall' constituencies, only Lee Anderson won, but Reform got around 20-25% in every seat. Indeed Reform appears to have cost the Tories the win in nine of them. Farage is probably a key factor in this, inspiring the same feelings of 2019. However, vote shares aside, they only secured one Northern seat (Ashfield) and one in the Midlands (Boston and Skegness). If the SDP were to challenge these types of constituencies with a bigger profile, and push the anti-neoliberal issue, they might do better than Reform in the future.

Defections  

In Parliament, only Lee Anderson has defected to Reform so far. The retention of his seat is impressive and based on his power as a local figure. Many were predicting he would lose, but he didn't even come close - gaining a whopping 37.8% swing. I personally see Anderson as something of a liability, because he will say quite wrongheaded things as we saw with "Khan's Islamist mates". More recently he advocated giving the Manchester Airport policeman “a medal” for seeming to stamp on a suspect's head. The full video came out confirming the police had been violently attacked, but even so it was unwise to make such a remark. However, my liability angle is not backed up by Anderson's election win - apparently he is red meat for the base. Indeed, both comments were applauded by many.   

The SDP have enjoyed no high-profile defections. My conversations with SDP members suggest most do not want a figure like Rosie Duffield or JK Rowling joining, because they don't see them as compatible. However, I fail to see the leadership turning down such an opportunity, especially Rowling. Paul Embery would be welcome, but nobody believes he would ever do it.

Exposure and Celebrity

Both parties have been getting steadily more media appearances. Reform of course benefitted from a lot of election coverage and the presence of Farage ensured that attention. The SDP was able to televise its first election broadcast since its 1980s heyday, which was controversial but not from a political point of view. Stylistically it bombed owing to its cheap production quality and naff, poorly acted comedy. Clouston pulled it back somewhat at the end with his closing statement. You can't fault them for trying but one wishes a proper filmmaker had been handed the project. Reform's videos were very savvy, and continue to be, taking a leaf out of Trump meme campaigns.  

Reform have reportedly enjoyed a surge of support from Generation Z voters, thanks in part to Farage's rather undignified exploits on I'm a Celebrity, Cameo and TikTok. There is also a bit of a political shift as the liberal consensus is weakening and young people realise they can't afford what previous generations had. This is a trend that the SDP can benefit from as well.

We will cover money in a moment, but as I said last time, membership is and should be the key source of funding. Inspiring many people to join the SDP is the anonymous member 'Basil the Great'. He gently pushes the SDP online by holding large Twitter/X spaces, involving high profile SDP figures and ordinary members, as well as those from across the political spectrum. People from all over the world are becoming aware of the party and most spaces see multiple new members joining afterwards.

With regard to written literature, the SDP's manifesto was high quality. It had more detail than previous attempts, and policies that would be undoubtedly popular - were the public to be made aware of them. It's a great document to build on, and the active membership is involved in this process. I would say that it needs more statistics and costing to give it extra credibility.

Reform's 'Contract with You' chooses to shed the manifesto label, as something of a gimmick. 'Manifesto' is better - everyone knows what this is. Their repeated use of 'imagine' on their pledges pages is also quite odd: "Imagine no more small boats in the Channel; Imagine no NHS waiting lists". It sounds like a right wing John Lennon song - there is no need. Even more strangely, every word is capitalised - it looks clumsy.

Money

Zia Yusuf was the game-changer for Reform in this election. In the fourth week of the campaign alone, he donated £200,000, a third of the money the party raised that week. Three other donors gave around £100,000 each and the rest presumably came from new members and fundraising campaigns. To compare, Reform had £592,360 from week four, Labour had £451,232 and the Tories had £378,945. Between weeks two and four Reform raised over £1.4 million. Labour received £9 million between weeks one and four and the Tories raised £1.5 million (a huge gulf...). The Farage factor, again, was the inspiration for people to reach for their cheque books or to join the party. Without him there would have been less money spent and fewer votes won.

The cultivation of a million pound donor was announced at the SDP's October conference. This unfortunately has fallen through, for now at least. As yet I can't see how much money the SDP raised in the election campaign. One might assume, however, that their vote share has risen along with the fundraising level.

Policies

I identified the three obvious policy areas both parties should concentrate on - immigration, the Channel Crisis and reasonable energy policy. Nothing really changed with the stances on either issue, with the exception of Reform switching to a freeze in 'non-essential immigration'. That brought them slightly closer to Reform's cap of 50,000, but was still noticeably vaguer. The clumsy policy of 'net zero immigration' had also been proffered by Reform, but was jettisoned in the manifesto for something clearer. Net zero immigration would mean one-in, one-out - which in practice would not make a dent in the numbers, unless a lot of Brits started emigrating or migrants began returning home. Swapping emigrating Brits for incoming foreigners would just make our current cultural problems worse.

Interestingly, Reform appeared to poach the SDP's focus on family and community, something that some SDP members are irked with, especially considering the neoliberal side to Reform. Similarly, Farage was slamming the main parties as 'social democrats', which caused more raised eyebrows in Clouston's group. The limited election pact might go the way of the buffalo if this keeps up.

Summing up

In this fast moving political climate, many more things could change in the next months. I will keep a keen eye on both parties and discuss any developments at suitable junctures. Once again, these two parties are the best respective alternatives to the Conservative and Labour parties. If our country is to get back on its feet, barring a complete sea-change in the cultures of those organisations, Reform and The SDP really are the only hope.