When the 2024 UK General Election was announced, I blogged my thoughts (see here). I deemed these to be pertinent and this was my politically neutral contribution concerning the debates and deliberations that would inevitably follow. Two weeks on, while there have been developments, until recently there was not much to report on that is interesting, with the Sunak-Starmer debate two days back being predictably lack lustre (see here).

Among the thoughts I set out were a set of questions I would like to ask prospective candidates but these were unsurprisingly barely touched upon on the afore-mentioned debate. The pundits are predicting a Labour landslide at the expense of the Tories and it is difficult to disagree. The most interesting development in the two weeks since the election was announced was Nigel Farage throwing his hat into the ring standing to be elected as the MP for Clacton and taking over from Richard Tice as leader of Reform UK.

I have been following Nigel for many a year now and see him as an enigma and liken him to marmite (which some love and others loathe), but I rather like the chap because he has balls and he is not only one of the few around to stand up for some of the important principles and ideas I care about, e.g. Brexit, and prepared to pay the price, but he has been remarkably effective in his endeavours over a long period. This is no doubt the main reason why he took over from the previous chap as Reform’s Clacton PPC and Richard Tice has stepped aside so he can become leader of Reform UK.

When I listen to the usual suspects waxing lyrical on various media why Nigel is a bad ‘un, who more often than not have ideologically got it wrong, when having a pop at Nigel, wrongly accuse him of all sorts of bad things, such as racism and xenophobia, and in my belligerence I feel I need to stick up for him, pointing out the fact it was he who had led the charge to get Britain out of the globalist EU.

Interestingly, the last election was fought principally on the “get Brexit done” issue and, while not helped by the Covid scamdemic that followed shortly after coming to power, Boris and his successors were inept in delivering on the hopes of what ought to have followed leaving the EU and why a resounding victory in 2019 will likely be followed by a more than resounding defeat in 2024 and more unthinkably – the possible demise today’s Conservative Party.

Love him or loathe him, the fake media are still captivated by Nigel’s charisma and that gives him much opportunity to spread his message that in a nutshell is Britain has lost its way and what is needed is a return to what is in effect the consensus that arguably once existed concerning British values, which he does with great aplomb, including pointing out there is little to choose between Labour and Conservative, for neither have it in them under their respective current leaderships to address the malaise Britain is presently in and, pertinently, we find more and more people are sensing this to be the case and that an alternative is much needed.

Listening to the press conference when Nigel made his surprise announcement, I found there was a lot that resonated. I suspect making immigration one of his points of concern is part of his tactic to get popular support and would not be my approach. I am married to a foreign immigrant, belong to what was once a white Anglo-Saxon church now dominated by foreign immigrants and have back in the day done a lot more than most supporting and advocating on behalf of foreign immigrants, yet I believe we let in too many of the wrong sort into the country, doing so unconditionally, and both Labour and Conservative cannot be trusted to turn the tide.

Lots else Nigel said made sense, such as lamenting the fact that half of today’s school leavers do not understand the significance of yesterday’s D-Day commemoration. Not that my views are terribly relevant (other than as a mover and shaker prepared to put his head above the parapet that some listen to) but signs are many are turning to Nigel and Reform UK. Nigel realistically predicts a Labour victory on July 4^th but at the same time aspires to Reform UK being the effective opposition, replacing the Conservatives.

It’s a big ask especially given our first past the post electoral system would mean an extraordinarily massive swing to Reform would be needed, although latest poll figures suggest it could well happen as we are seeing people turn away from the two main parties to alternatives such as the Greens and Reform UK. When I posted my stake in the ground election post, I indicated that when considering Conservative alternative parties the one I was most drawn to was Heritage, ie. not Reform. Like many, I was attracted to Reform at the time of the EU referendum, who managed to gain a lot of the popular vote at the EU election. While I viewed Reform UK with optimism, since that initial enthusiasm I changed my mind.

Around 18 months ago, I posted my “Why I can’t support Reform UK and where my true hope lies” blog and gave reasons why that was so. I included a link to a two-minute video titled: “Why Reform UK (Richard Tice) Is No Good”, which showed Richard Tice on the wrong side of the argument when it came to the Ukraine war and what to do regarding Covid “vaccines” and Nigel Farage seemingly sticking up for Big Pharma and Tony Blair. No party is perfect of course, but a least Heritage has not gone down this erroneous path on what imho are two of the important questions, unlike what Tice and Farage have done.

When it comes to voting on July 4^th, I cannot tell anyone who they should vote for but rather share my own long-held principle – voting for the person who I believe will do the most overall good for my constituency (a difficult call, I know) and noting that this often means given our FPTP system of so voting contributing to letting in the worst of the alternatives. As for me, I will continue to watch (including warn) and pray, try to be a good person (with God’s help) and preach the gospel, which is far more needful to the people of this country than a change in government. Depressing as the UK political landscape may be, my hope is not in politicians but rather the living God who is in complete control and does all things well.

Update 09/06/24: I confess to not having been avidly following developments in the various campaigns to win power in the July 4th General Election. I can think of reasons why this is so: firstly a lot of the debate are not imho on the main issues; secondly, I find it not conducive to my mental health and thirdly, it could be an unhelpful distractation. But from what I can make out, Reform UK under Farage are riding high in the opinion polls and the Conservatives under Sunak are riding low. As for Labour under Starmer, while polling high in the polls, that has a lot to do with disasatisfaction with the alternatives. I can imagine many who would have voted Labour switching to Green or even LibDem, just as Conservative voters are switching to Reform, possibly in droves. Logically, given our FPTP system, deals ought to be struck to gain power. In the Reform case, it could be with the Conservatives and other alternative right parties such as Heritage. But I suspect this won’t happen. Nigel will well remember standing down in 2019, which let Boris in with his “get Brexit done” message, only to lament the fact that today Brexit is far from done and the Conservatives are no longer conservative. Finally, having met many disillusioned persons feeling their voices are unlikely to be heard giving the “system” is as it is and those who are best placed to change things for the better will unlikely be able to do so, my message to them is to trust God who can change things rather than politicians who can’t or won’t.