Has Reform peaked?

The Clacton voting patterns may shed some light on this soon enough.

I think the answer is peaked and dropping.

Not sure about that.
There are 34 candidates.
Most are independent.

To maremia post

Farage will of course be returned, but my bet with a vastly reduced majority.

Most of what this slippery eel has been up to has yet to be revealed, and as the revelations appear his stock will gradually disappear.

I suspect he will once again disappear from politics.

Farage and Polanski, two of a kind. Chancers who got lucky

Just so. But Farage has been amazingly lucky given his history.

Polenski appears as one of the world innocents - in way above his abilities.

They are very different characters.

Well Farage has a clear history of starting parties off and then they have faded away or splits have happened. In the meantime he has made a great deal of money as an MP (leaving aside dodgy gifts) with GB news and other ventures and guest appearances here and there when he was supposed to be working as an MP.
I think there is a real chance he will repeat the pattern of the past.

I think thats very perceptive WWM in terms of Polanski. Bright, he does care, but not enough political experience to make best choices for the Greens.

Many I know still stay with the Greens because goodness knows we need action on climate change:

but that lack of experience is not doing good service to the key messages of the "Greens"

Well, we’ve got a new PM now who is going to make everything better and wonderful. No need for anyone else.

Independent... or Reform supporters, fancythat!

I am still quite puzzled as to why the media, which has given him the very easiest of rides for more than a decade, has turned against him.

M0nica

Farage and Polanski, two of a kind. Chancers who got lucky

Maybe, but two entirely different people, I don’t class them in the same bracket. In my opinion Polanski’s misdemeanours are foolish and he is totally out of his depth.

For many years Farage has been involved in politics, he has been dishonest and divisive and caused huge rifts in our country.

For me, they are not cut from the same cloth.

Kandinsky

Well, we’ve got a new PM now who is going to make everything better and wonderful. No need for anyone else.

Well, to be fair, the same sort of belief seemed to motivate a great many Reform voters; Nigel was going to make everything better. It was, if you like, an equally irrational belief and one that is easily transferable from one politician/party to another.

Where poor old Nige has lost out is that he’s never been in a position where he can make everything better so he’s lost the voters who are happy to transfer that belief to someone who is in a position to do so.

Reflecting on every election of my reasonably long lifetime has usually produced the conclusion that the winner is the one who has convinced enough voters that they are going to make everything better for them; the voters themselves don’t really care how the winner intends to do it.

I recall all too well when he was an MEP that instead of representing his constituents that group just stood up and turned their backs on the EU assembly instead of arguing a point. and the lies on the campaign buses promising the earth just as he is now with the "not possibles".

I agree MaizieD
Reform voters really couldn’t care less who ‘stops the boats’ and gets tough on illegal migrants. Andy Burnham or Andy Pandy - couldn’t care less, as long as it’s done.

MaizieD

I am still quite puzzled as to why the media, which has given him the very easiest of rides for more than a decade, has turned against him.

Good question.

Carole Cadwalladr and Peter Jukes have been writing about the relationship between George Cottrell and the major players in Reform for years. If it looks like money laundering and smells like money laundering … Now, all of sudden, the Sunday Times Insight team and various other outlets are on the same trail and it’s big news. It always was.

My guess is that Farage has made some big enemies within the Reform movement over the last couple of years who are now spilling the tea. Stories of infighting are rife.

A few weeks ago, you linked to that Rob Lammas article for Conservative Home that gave his insider’s view of the chaos without the party and the rivalries and resentments between old UKiP activists, Reform incomers and Tory defectors.

I think Zia Yusuf has been and is a hugely divisive figure. Someone who came from nowhere with a relatively small bag of cash, isn’t an MP (allegedly not allowed to stand) and now behaves as if he’s the future Home Secretary. Dan Hodges has described Yusuf as “protected” by Farage. Why would that be?