Despite the energised start Andy Burnham has made as prime minister, plenty of his party’s MPs and hardcore activists are still haunted by a familiar sense of insecurity. Underpinned by a political version of impostor syndrome, it runs deep – and, bar the odd spell of Labour optimism, it always has. So it is with the battle between Labour and Reform UK that will define an election that could arrive much sooner than some people think, and a widely held ambivalence on the left about the possibility of Nigel Farage’s party taking power.
Reform is apparently in deep trouble, yet also still in with a serious chance. Investigations into the party and its leadership’s finances by both the Metropolitan police and parliament’s standards commissioner may worsen Reform’s woes. Those investigations predate the two recently announced £36m donations from the crypto tycoons Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo, which themselves risk being backdatedly ruled illegal and are reportedly already being spent on 400 “field agents”.
The two mega-donations symbolise two connected stories. One is about the possible buyout of our fragile democracy. The other centres on how, from much of the public’s perspective, all the allegations about Farage and his party might have already turned into an indecipherable blizzard.
So, although Reform is down, it is still far from out. But the reasons for that extend much further than money. Reform still has a serious chance of either leading or forming the next government because of the same basic fact that Burnham says he has come to avenge: that since the crash of 2008, millions of British lives have pinballed from one crisis to the next, leaving many people resentful, insecure and plain scared.
If anyone hadn’t already noticed, ours is an age of fear: of economic insecurity, wildfires and unprecedented weather, seemingly unending wars, and massed and chaotic human movement. Reform – and the Tories – lean into all that anxiety, offering the kind of crass solutions (witness Farage’s recent promise of a state of “national emergency” as soon as he takes office) that only heighten people’s sense of crisis. Labour, meanwhile, can only offer another variation of its age-old answer: modest hope and constructive change.
Such will be the choice sooner or later presented to voters. And in that sense, the next election will be more emotional than political. Make no mistake: the campaign has effectively already begun.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
