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Rupert Lowe’s new Restore Britain Party may be bad news for the right in British politics—splitting the vote just when Reform looked poised to replace Labour in the next election. That would be the conventional assumption. But the enthusiastic response to his announcement shows how rapidly the pendulum is swinging. Farage suddenly looks moderate and mainstream. A large part of the electorate is tired of more of the same old same old and is craving real change. They feel betrayed after Brexit. They have trust issues.
We are in a revolutionary period; and the revolution devours its children.
I suspect the same dynamic lost the last Canadian election for Pierre Poilievre. Once Trump was elected to the south, Poilievre no longer seemed so transgressive. He needed to up the ante. Instead, he followed the convention of moving to the centre. That does not work in a revolutionary period. He echoed the Liberals on the Trump file, the dominant issue of the campaign. If he’s going to be just another Liberal, why not vote for the real Liberals? Why switch horses? After all, the existing cabinet have more experience, and Carney’s resume is stronger than Poilievre’s.
Trump is now the pace-setter. The key to success now on the right is to sound at least as transgressive of the established mainstream narratives as Trump. Lowe has seen that.
Poilievre no doubt fears being branded as “Maple MAGA,” given Trump’s unpopularity north of the 49th. But he will be branded this way by the Liberals and the legacy media no matter what. The only possible strategy is to embrace it. You cannot win an election being defensive. He should take a leaf from Trump’s playbook when accused of being too close to Putin. Why is it a bad thing to be able to get along with the enemy? He should play up Jamil Jivani’s friendship with JD Vance, and promise “sunny ways” to get a better deal with the Americans.
