[rayiner]

Reform isn’t even close to “far right.” Are they trying to defund the NHS? Get rid of government pensions? Immigration restriction isn’t “far right.” The sharp curtailment of immigration from Britain’s colonies was enacted in 1968 under a Labour government. In the U.S., sharply restricting immigration was a policy that prevailed during FDR, who was the most liberal U.S. president in history. “Far right” is someone like Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan who thought the private sector could fix everything.

[tialaramex]

I think Reform is best understood as the Temu Tory Party. What if you couldn't afford an actual Tory Party, but you saw this advertised for £0 on your phone ?

I think it'll be interesting to watch Tories who could never put together a PM bid that worked wriggle inside Reform to push out Farage. Farage is naturally the leader of an outfit like UKIP, actual Nazis in the trenches, led by a few people you can put in a suit who know not to do the salute and who make sure not to say the wrong thing on camera. But, he doesn't want to lead UKIP, he wanted to be Prime Minister, and that's a harder lift.

[rayiner]

How are Reform like Tories? Didn't immigration massively increase under Tories? I don't know anything about Farage, but I doubt your comparisons are accurate. I've seen one video of him, and he came across as far to the left of your average asian leader on immigration.

[tialaramex]

> How are Reform like Tories?

I think the problem might be that you don't know anything about this at all?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2yrjqp4zvo -- Suella Braverman, who had been Tory Home Secretary deciding on these policies you think are the opposite of what Reform stands for, defected to join Reform just days ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gv9gyxgjjo -- that's Farage, only days earlier, insisting that his party isn't for failed Tories, like Suella.

It's Temu Tory Party.

[tolien]

This isn’t a new thing either; Farage has been challenged over claiming to align with far-right Northern Irish Unionist parties like Traditional Unionist Voice while recording Cameos saying things like “up the ‘RA”.

The ignorance isn’t a mistake, it’s part of the brand that lets them spout whatever their audience wants ts to hear.

[rayiner]

Several prominent Democrats defected to Trump’s GOP. Does that make that a “Temu Democratic Party?” Or is it just a sign of the ideological realignment that’s happening in conservative parties all across the west?

[tialaramex]

I guess I hadn't heard this news. Who defected? I mean, you said "prominent" so presumably we're talking a few US senators or a Governor or something ? People I'd have heard of?

About half of Reform's parliamentary party were elected as Tories. Was Josh Hawley previously a Democrat ? Did Mitch used to be Bernie's best friend and then Trump swayed him to join the GOP ? Maybe Rand Paul or Tom Cotton ? No ? So we're not talking about the same thing at all.

[rayiner]

Tulsi Gabbard, who was a House member and vice chair of the DNC, and RFK Jr., who is a Kennedy. In the other direction you have Michael Steele, who was chairman of the RNC, and Dick Cheney, who was the Vice President.

What you’re describing is just a party realignment. It’s a much bigger realignment than what you’ve seen in the U.S. for awhile, but every now and then when coalitions will break apart and reform. Many of the original GOP members were former Whig Party members (which was one of the two major parties that existed after the Federalist Party collapsed). Ir would’ve been weird to call the GOP “Temu Whigs” because they had a different coalition with different priorities, despite the overlap.

In the UK, it seems like Reform is prepared to moderate on the economic libertarianism of the Thatcherite Tory Party in order to bring culturally conservative anti-immigration voters into the coalition.

[jpfromlondon]

Neither Thatcher nor Reagan are far right, they are Neoliberal and therefore centre-right.

[rayiner]

They were both ideologically on the libertarian end of neoliberal, which is highly unusual. There’s no major political party anywhere in the world currently that’s as far right on free markets as Reagan and Thatcher were, except maybe Milei’s Argentina.

Reform’s nationalism by contrast is incredibly milquetoast. It wouldn’t even be considered right wing in much of the world. For example, if the shoe were on the other foot, and British and Irish immigration had reduced Bangladeshis to a minority in Dhaka, then the immigrants would be removed en masse (as the center-left government did with the Rohingya in response to that migration).

What do you think would happen in China if Indians and Bangladeshis mass migrated to Beijing until Chinese people were a minority? It would be a lot less talk and a lot more action than what you’re seeing from Reform.