Reform UK's Thomas Kerr speaks after by-election

Reform UK's Thomas Kerr speaks after by-election

Why greater scrutiny of Reform UK will benefit Nigel Farage

Reform UK’s responses to increase scrutiny of the party will highlight just how badly the establishment has failed this country.

Alarm bells are ringing, klaxons are sounding the alert – Nigel Farage has visited Scotland and, cor blimey, he proved more popular than his opponents expected. There is a great deal of lazy thinking about why Farage and his Reform UK party is proving attractive to a growing number of the electorate.

Some opponents think all they need to do is ‘other’ him and the party’s supporters as being “hard” or “far” right or “racist” and voters will return dutifully to their pens like the good sheep they should be, to then be shepherded to vote for the various brands of the uniparty – like lambs going to slaughter.

Unsurprisingly this misplaced strategy has not worked, but has infuriated many who believe their own opinions have not changed over the last few decades while the centrist parties have accelerated their gradual drift to the statist left. Such people find the parties they once trusted to represent them are now the very people who have betrayed them.

Political common sense
Industrial workers, people on assembly lines, tradesfolk, entrepreneurs, the self-employed and inventors in their garden sheds – all have found it more difficult to make their hard work, resilience and grounded reality be recognised and rewarded by our technocratic and managerially dominated political class.

Mothers and fathers raising their children, young couples starting out, students simply wanting to learn the skills or knowledge to further themselves are often at their wits end trying to pay the bills, make ends meet and have something left over to save up for a deposit on their first property or their forever home.

Where has the common sense gone of keeping taxes modest so people can use their own finances to make the judgment calls best suited to their circumstances? Where has the common sense gone of children learning how to read, write and count to a high minimum standard in a safe classroom before prioritising learning about birds and bees or what constitutes a woman?

When are governments going to have the common sense to live within their means, something people understand in their own lives and forget at their peril? The British government has never banked a budget surplus since 2001 when Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown was still working to the spending commitments of his Tory predecessor.

Taxing our children
Nowadays the answer to every problem is to hose public money at it, with a quango created for good measure so decisions can be taken without democratic accountability. We often talk about taxpayers’ money being spent badly, but it is more accurately borrowed money being spent badly – which means taxing the future earnings of our children and their children for spending to be made on us living now.