Blog

Taking it as read that the Tories lose the next election, they're not getting a whiff of power again until they catch up with the Will Of The Electorate (aka public sentiment) on immigration. Their big problem, though, is that however robust their immigration policies, they'll still be nowhere near where the public is. The direction of travel is further right all the time. Even centre-right immigration policies will fail to impress jaded right-leaning voters.&nbsp;The latest recommendations from @RobertJenrick are good as far as they go, but it's still shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. It does nothing to address the "sub-prime" illegal immigration influx of the last few years.&nbsp;Ultimately, we're going to need a massive overhaul of welfare, not least because we can no longer afford such massive liabilities and we most certainly can't afford to keep bankrolling the least productive foreigners to occupy the highest value real-estate. The lawlessness, crime and squalor will deter investment in London.But this is also a warning shot to the Reform Party, in that their idiotic "net zero immigration" policy still implies a massive influx of people. They're going to need a comprehensive and credible array of policies to address the multiple threads of immigration problems, from universities to the care sector, industrial policy and the detection of illegal immigration. If the Tories do travel to the centre right, Reform will look quite tame by contrast. Unless Reform is prepared to go further, there is no real reason for its existence.&nbsp;Right now, though, neither party is offering a robust approach to directly address the problems, and if you want to vote for a party that takes the issue seriously, then you have to look to the far fringes.At present, it seems Tories are afraid of their own shadow on immigration, with half the party convinced that they have to maintain the mythical centre ground to avoid a wipe out. They should try talking to their former voters, particularly the young, who are quite awake to the fact that our open borders increasingly deny them a shot at homeownership or even renting anywhere close to where the good jobs are. Nobody sane is going to pay £2k a month for a rented shoebox in a neighbourhood where third world tribes battle for drug turf outside the front door.&nbsp;On that note, reclaiming the streets is an absolute priority. Just getting a grip on immigration isn't enough. The Met police needs to be broken up and taken away from mayoral control. We then need our own Gendarmerie directly answerable to Number Ten. We need to put the fear of God into the ghettos who assume anything goes.&nbsp;For as long as the establishment parties show no sign of getting a grip, voters are increasingly going to withdraw from the process until something worth voting for shows up. And on current from, that won't be Reform either.&nbsp;It's interesting that the Irish are now mobilising against mass immigration, and sentiment is only going to harden further across Europe. This is becoming an existential issue for all of Europe. The only people who aren't getting the message are the British political class. They have no idea how out of touch they are. They have no idea how moronic they are. They have no idea how much they are despised. They keep wailing about the toxicity of public debate and the way they're received by the public, but they ain't seen nothing yet. And, boy, will they deserve what they get.&nbsp;They thought we didn't notice them bending over for the Islamist mob camped outside parliament. They thought we didn't notice them sweeping the brutal murder of the affable David Amess under the rug. They thought we didn't notice mobs of foreigners defacing our monuments and defecating in the streets. They thought we didn't notice emboldened Jihadists calling for blood on the streets of London. They think we haven't noticed their abject moral cowardice.But we noticed. And we're taking notes. We're noticing how the political class is trying to keep a lid on it. We notice their state of denial. We noticed the two-tier policing. We notice the false equivalence with an electorally insignificant "far right". We notice our cities turning into squalid, crime-ridden slums. We notice our living standards declining. We notice Britain becoming a more crowded, hostile and alien country that we can no longer call home. We noticed. We'll remember. We're coming to collect.

Halt... who goes there...?

I was down in London yesterday, a little off the beaten path. After four years of living in the Yorkshire countryside, you realise how much you take a high trust society for granted. You don't have to do a safety assessment before taking your phone out. You can sit on a street bench without assessing who's around you. But in London, the moment you step off the tube you really need your wits about you.&nbsp;London always has an exciting buzz to it, and there's always been an underlying sense of danger to the place. That's part of its appeal and what makes it attractive to young people. There's a sense of adventure. But at the same time, there a sense that the peace is fragile. Wait around long enough and something will kick off. Multiculturalism isn't "melting pot". There isn't a sense of mutual affinity or cultural commonality. You're very much aware that you're among foreigners and alien cultures.&nbsp;That too, I suppose, has been part of London's appeal. There is a certain novelty to it, and a break from the humdrum and sameness of provincial life. But that's in the knowledge there is somewhere to retreat to at the end of the day, where cultural norms resume, and you can make certain basic assumptions about personal safety. ie. that people who look like you, or members of your family probably aren't going to mug you or stab you, and there are shared values in the public sphere. This is what we mean by community cohesion. This is the only basis for any sense of belonging.&nbsp;As such, London is a foreign country. I have no affinity with the people I'm surrounded by. There's barely a common language now. You're on high alert the whole time, and on a subconscious level, it's exhausting. There's tired, and then there's London tired.Humans can become accustomed to this, and even learn to appreciate it. Even thrive off it. It creates its own culture. It's not surprising that many wouldn't have it any other way, and don't see a problem with it. It's immersive, and you soon adapt. Every day brings something different.&nbsp;For me, as a towering chap, I can take much of it in my stride. I'm generally not in danger. I would think very differently, though, as a single white female. That subconscious sense that danger is everywhere must be draining. More so as a parent. I'm not sure I would want offspring to have to run the gauntlet of gangs of feral black youths. I wouldn't want to stay there.And that's the thing about a high trust society. Life may not be as exciting, but you can take certain things for granted, and there are far fewer basic things to have to worry about. You don't have to reserve mental resources to running a personal safety programme. You don't have to double check your car is locked and shut your windows at night. You can relax in the public realm, and take your eye off your kids.&nbsp;I know there's probably Londoners reading this and chuckling to themselves. I suppose when you're immersed in it, you stop realising the habitual routines you go through, and you've seen enough to know when you're safe, but even for them, whether they admit it or not, there's side streets they think twice about going down. Districts they won't walk through at night. Parks they walk around rather than through. They've just learned to manage the dangers.&nbsp;Underpinning all this, though, is the fact that you're only ever one 999 call from help. In central London, you won't wait long for the police to show up, and notwithstanding the current state of the Met, they still have the authority of the state and the monopoly on violence. That's the only reason it all works. But what happens when the police are outnumbered? What happens when immigrant communities elect to ignore them and directly challenge their authority? What happens when they can determine their own law of the street? In some places that tipping point is already reached.&nbsp;And what happens, when there's nowhere to retreat to at the end of the day? What happens, when there's nowhere to move away to? What happens when that basic trust is nowhere to be found? What happens when there is no clear majority capable of asserting a dominant rule of law? What happens when warring minorities compete for control of the streets and nobody can restore order?It's easy to develop a fortress mentality when you spend much of your time on social media, exposed to a steady stream of violent imagery from the capital, and there's a lot of histrionics around election time about crime and public safety. We all know it's not as bad it seems. But all the same, there are signals that we cannot afford to ignore. The shift in London demographics tells its own story. White flight from London tells us that people crave a sense of safety, identity and belonging. It's fundamental to family and community. There is no community without trust in the public sphere.&nbsp;The danger now is that there is nothing of our own culture left in London for immigrants to integrate into. It's increasingly alien and foreign, and may of our other cities are going the same way. How then can immigrants learn from us to become part of us? Integration with current rates of immigration is simply impossible. How then can there be a sense of national identity when there is so little cultural commonality between county and conurb, country and capital? How can we ever be a functioning society? At what point does peaceful coexistence become an impossibility? This doesn't end well. Early reactions to this post have pointed out that other towns have their own problems, not least high crime "white trash" ghettos. I don't dispute that. But they are easier problems to resolve. Crack down on that kind of crime and there's immediate public backing. But any time the police try to get on top of machete crime in London, the race grifters are immediately out in force protesting institutional racism. There's nothing like the same challenges, and the police can generally do their jobs.When it comes to high crime provincial towns, very often you have a problem with Albanian gang crime, drugs and the inherent social problems that go with high unemployment and an easily gamed welfare system, leading to high welfare dependency. These are fixable problems. Unchecked immigration, however, creates problems of its own.&nbsp;In 2022 we saw outbreaks of unrest between Hindu nationalists and Muslims. There is zero chance of building good community relations or high trust in those circumstances, and policing it is just as much a refereeing job. It's closer to policing Belfast suburbs during the troubles. That's the true nature of the sectarianism that goes with multiculturalism. You would hope we would have learned.The problems are just as acute, if not more so, in places like Leicester, but as we've seen from the Israel-Gaza conflict, these spillovers can be deadly. We're now seeing Jews hunted by Arab-speaking degenerates in broad daylight. The bottom line is that if you import the Third World, then you also import their tribal Third World problems. For the moment, we are (just) able to contain it, but for how much longer? And what happens if a more serious conflict kicks off, say between India and Pakistan?The reason we're losing our cities is that anybody sane doesn't want to live among it when it does kick off. Those with the means to leave are leaving, and what's left are ethnic enclaves and ghettos where the state is unable to exert its own authority. Urban Balkanisation is here and now.We're then dealing with immigrant communities who will not integrate (because there's nothing to integrate into) and couldn't if they wanted to, because their native culture is too far offset from European high-trust norms.This isn't a case of a country boy being bewildered by London. I've had plenty of experience of the grimier bits of London, and it's noticeably worse in recent years. I've lived in the "diverse" areas of Leeds, Bradford and Bristol, and I've seen the crime for myself. I've experienced it plenty of times. There was a time when terraced houses didn't have bars on the windows, but now it's common enough to be unremarkable.&nbsp;This didn't happen overnight. Our cities became more crowded, more hostile, more transient, and more alien, making the bonds that make community possible unlikely. This certainly no environment to raise kids if you want to keep them on the straight and narrow.&nbsp;Community isn't council-sponsored diversity murals. It cannot be manufactured by bureaucrats. There has to be a sense of belonging, and a sense of commonality. That can't happen when there isn't even a common language. And without community, a district is just a dormitory. You can't even call it multiculturalism because there's no culture at all. Without a moratorium on immigration, our cities will become urban wastelands and occupied territories.

From high trust rural Yorkshire to 3rd world Londonistan

We need a grown-up debate about British agriculture.To put it bluntly, British farmers are completely fucked. In a global marketplace it's already difficult to compete since Britain will struggle to get anything like the same economies of scale. It's never going to be able to compete on price, and we're always going to need imports.&nbsp;Protectionism isn't going to do the consumer any favours, and it won't help British farmers, especially. To shield British farmers from global competition, tariffs would be so high that we would just end up with food shortages.&nbsp;The only thing British farmers can compete on is welfare standards and quality, to appeal to middle and upper income consumers. We can gear British farming in that direction, and there will always been a market for high quality foods.&nbsp;Still, though, it's difficult to see a future in farming, because animal feed, fertiliser and pesticide manufacture are energy intensive operations - as is grain drying and storage. Both Labour and the Tories are committed to long terms high energy prices.&nbsp;Then there's environmentalism and climate red tape. Everything a British farmer does is steeped in regulations. Some of it highly necessary, but much of it is the imposition of middle-class midwittery that champions organic and regenerative farming, and habitat preservation. Paying farmers to do anything but produce food. As @clim8resistance says, the decision to adopt so-called "regenerative farming" methods is a decision for individual farms to make. If the ideas and economics work for farmers, they can make that decision. Governments make terrible farmers, and should only legislate to the minimal extent necessary.It's true that the rural aesthetic is part of the national character, and we do want well maintained countryside, and farmers have a role to play in flood prevention, and we want them to be compensated for that, but farmers are no Net Zero implementation operatives. They're going to be spending most of their time filling out bullshit applications for sustainability payments and carbon offset schemes. As to land use and planning permission, fuhgeddaboudit. Everything is stacked against them. Policy is too heavily influenced by the green blob, made up of zealot NGOs who actually hate farmers and farming. The only sensible thing for farmers to do is to cease farming.I personally think abolishing the EU veterinary system would go a long way toward revitalising our meat industry, but that's not going to happen because regulatory policy is dominated by remainer wonks who prioritise "frictionless trade" over all other concerns, and the Windsor Framework pretty much guarantees any reform initiative will be stillborn. As such, there is no Brexit dividend for farming.&nbsp;Though I'm horrified that so much land has been given over to solar farms, I actually don't blame farmers for grubbing the cash while they can because producing food is a mug's game, especially when the supermarkets are gouging them. Moreover, deregulation only gets you so far. Supermarkets are pushing their own quasi-regulation under the guise of Corporate Social Responsibility, demanding farmers take measures to cut carbon in order to sell to them, allowing supermarkets to claim the efforts of farmers as part of their tradable carbon offset allowances. Farmers don't see a penny.Though corporates are now doing a reverse ferret on CSR, and further green measures in the Red Tractor scheme have been abandoned, that won't stop devolved governments meddling in things they know nothing about. As central government goes cool on Net Zero, the oafish devolved governments are doubling down. Farmers can't catch a break. The only people who have it worse are EU farmers, who now have to contend with a war on pesticides, fertilisers and land decommissioning under CAP reform. Though popular groupthink has it that we need to phase out fertilisers and pesticides, the bottom line is that farmers can have no profit margin without them.&nbsp;The only way British farming has a future is by becoming the agriculture R&amp;D lab of the world, creating new patents and pioneering SMR based nuclear desalination for irrigation, which can also serve as CHP for greenhouses. But again that means prioritising cheap, secure, abundant energy - which won't happen. The establishment parties are too wrapped up in the bogus notion of green jobs, so will keep flinging barrels of cash at the wind industry and other useless eco-boondoggles. Consequently, there are fewer and fewer ways for farms to stay afloat. They can't all diversify and run farm shops.&nbsp;Unless we have a grown-up debate about agriculture, I don't think the sector has a future at all. But we're not going to get a grown-up debate.&nbsp;Not least because farmers have such poor industry representation through the NFU - which is in bed with the green blob. Meanwhile, our politicians are too stupid to grasp the complexity and urgency of the situation, and there is zero hope of informed debate in the media, especially when their go-to talking head is the deeply moronic Brexit-obsessed Liz Webster. It seems the only way to make a profit from farming now is to be an ex-BBC motoring correspondent with a TV deal and massive cash reserves.&nbsp;Clarkson may be new to farming, but he might be the last man standing.<figure id="figure-1shbecxuoflw9q498t"><img id="1shbecxuoflw9q498t" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/37zNEAshERc6EVRechuzYzBnx2yTOgxUBO8MkoHvA7BF1KsQSNlPVswaMkTnp31x.jpg" alt="EVERY DAY IS FUTURE. Global climate change strike - No Planet B - Global Climate Strike 09-20-2019" title="EVERY DAY IS FUTURE. Global climate change strike - No Planet B - Global Climate Strike 09-20-2019" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionX="undefined" data-positionY="undefined" data-fullWidth="false"/></figure>

We need a grown-up debate about British agriculture.

I like Miriam Cates and I know what she's getting at, but <a href="https://x.com/miriam_cates/status/1790389769689505958" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-href="https://x.com/miriam_cates/status/1790389769689505958">Miriam Cates' speech on lawless schools</a> is the wrong approach and I doubt it's enforceable. If anything, it will weaken the authority of the state because parents will openly defy it. What's missing is proper parental supervision and a lack of discipline imposed by teachers. That points to a bigger and more difficult problem.&nbsp;Teachers, like the police, can only impose discipline if they have the backing of the state and the parents. The police are hamstrung by political correctness without political backing, and teachers live in constant fear of lawsuits and disciplinary action. Consequently, they have no authority and kids can run rings around them, just as criminals can openly mock the plod.&nbsp;The more difficult problem is the lack of parental backing of teachers, where parents view teachers as glorified babysitters. Teachers should have parental authority to impose discipline on licence, but if teachers assert their own authority, they are likely to face complaints from parents.The other problem, is that we have overly feminised teaching, and too many teachers are an absolute pushover who do not command respect in their own right, thus lack personal authority. Kids can smell a weakling a mile off. &nbsp;The ultimate issue, though, is feckless parents who take no interest in their child's development, and believe it is the responsibility of the school to instil discipline. Parents are outsourcing parenthood to schools, and a leftist run educational establishment is all too happy to assume that role, with the state acting as a surrogate. Leftists want control over your kids so they can indoctrinate them in everything from climate dogma to gender ideology. Instruments like free school meals are just one of the ways to water down parental responsibility.&nbsp;Fixing this is not easy. Fixing it requires better, more rounded teachers. It used to be the case that teaching was a respected profession and a teacher would enjoy a degree of social status. Now it's just a job. There is no competition to become a teacher, and nobody in their right mind would want to do it with so little moral support from the state or from parents, and not for the pitiful pay.I think what's needed is a formal contract between parents and schools, setting out the obligations of all parties including the child, and the school should enjoy the right to exclude. Here, I'm in danger of speaking outside my field of experience, because I know how difficult that would be to enforce, and the school isn't always right. It would probably need independent regional arbitration bodies headed up by voluntary magistrates.We have no problem setting standards, but we're useless at enforcing them because we're a soft touch and there are too many mitigating excuses. We need to demand better of parents and make them understand that their negligence/indifference/incompetence will have consequences. What we're talking about here is a renewed social contract that stops making allowances, especially on the grounds of race/faith and culture, and doesn't bend to "special snowflakism". Your child, in all probability, does not have special needs, isn't autistic, and needs to comply with the same &nbsp;basic standards as everyone else.&nbsp;The proliferation of unchecked phone use among minors is a symptom of a broader malaise, and Cates is attacking a symptom rather than an issue that has deeper philosophical causes.&nbsp;As such, her proposal is only going to end up inconveniencing responsible parents while making virtually zero impact on the causal problems, which would no doubt require much more ambitious and contentious measures, and will again have to take on the blob. This falls short of that very necessary confrontation, and we can chalk it up as another instance of the Tories fiddling around the edges, and shrinking from taking on bad faith actors and degenerate leftist ideas. This is a half measure, and it ain't gonna work.A simplistic, half-baked populist approach illustrates why populism is a poor substitute for policy.

Starting to drain the Education swamp...

Added <a data-mce-href="https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1791908623339098381" href="https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1791908623339098381" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saturday May 18th 20:00</a> Tice has a curious attitude to Ukip because Ukip is closer to where the right's activist base is. He needs them. Understandably, Ukip doesn't want to dismantle its grassroots infrastructure to merge with a private limited company, and they're right not to back a party with such a flaccid immigration policy.&nbsp;The solution, therefore, is for Reform to stiffen immigration policy, and to relaunch with an elected NEC and a party constitution to give members an active role in the direction of the party. Two seats on the NEC could even be offered to the Ukip leadership as a precursor to a merger.&nbsp;I doubt this would happen, mind you, because Ukip is a bit too Ukippy for Tice. But then that begs the question, if Reform isn't prepared to be a bit Ukippy, what is the point of it?&nbsp;Right now it's presenting as a generic populist protest-vote dustbin rather than a movement. It cannot survive without a fundamental purpose, especially if its positions are only marginally to the right of whatever is salvaged from the wreckage of the Tory party. I would like for Reform to shape up and get with the programme, but at the moment, I'm struggling to see it as anything other than a distracting nuisance.Uninspired and uninspiring In recent weeks, I've criticised the Reform Party for its lack of an intellectual foundation. There are several problems with the party, but most of them stem from not having a philosophical definition. Consequently, there is no framework for its policies. It actually has no policies to speak of. It just has crowd-pleasing tropes with no detail, none of which get anywhere near fixing the problems at source.Then there's the Tice problem. Frankly, he's not up to it. He's a poor media performer, he's not especially compelling, and he's easily wrong-footed. But because Reform has few other sources of income, they're stuck with him. And that's a problem. Reform will struggle to attract major donors if it cannot demonstrate organic growth and polling momentum, and it can't manage either with ineffectual leadership, no intellectual foundation, and no grassroots organisation to speak of. It's a party on paper, but it's not a movement.The party also lacks a clear strategy. Tice believes the mission is to destroy the Tory party; but the impact of Reform is muted by the Gaza effect on Labour. Moreover, they're deceiving themselves if they think they're the automatic beneficiary of the Tory implosion. The Blackpool South by-election results are troubling for Reform. Reform is failing to inspire.&nbsp;At the beginning of this line of enquiry, I believed these problems could be fixed. But for the problem to be addressed, the leadership has to recognise that there is a problem. The leadership currently refutes the suggestion there is no intellectual foundation, and denies that its policies are populist tropes.&nbsp;Certainly there is an intellectual framework for Ben Habib's thinking, but there is no evidence of this on the Reform website. That suggests to me that the website is an afterthought, which suggests no thought has gone into communications strategy.&nbsp;If I was a voter visiting the website to give Reform a second look, I would conclude that Reform was an amateurish populist party that will say anything for popularity, and has no understanding of the scale, complexity and urgency of the problems. It is a party called Reform, but does not offer a reform prospectus. Nothing on the website points to an overhaul of governance.As such, Reform risks being left behind. There is still a gap in the market for a new movement on the right, but Reform is not entitled to those votes. They could just as easily go somewhere else. It seems that Cummings and Goodwin are lining up to launch something. That will soak up enormous political and media attention - and votes. Both figures (for reasons that escape me) are regarded as heavyweights.&nbsp;There's a lot of debate happening on the right as to what should be the intellectual underpinnings of a new movement. It's forming up on the lines of National Conservatism. It’s a fully fleshed out ideology with policies that suggest themselves. Nick Timothy has been advancing policy ideas through his Telegraph column, and debate on immigration is travelling further to the right than the current "net-zero" position outlined by Reform. Debate is now going beyond numbers and is now looking at pro-natalist tax policies, citizenship reform, and cohesion policies.Essentially, there is an emerging intellectual foundation for a new movement, and if it surfaces, it will leave Reform standing, leaving voters to wonder why it still exists.I recently wrote a short sketch called <a data-mce-href="https://www.northernvariant.co.uk/p/reforming-reform" href="https://www.northernvariant.co.uk/p/reforming-reform" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reforming Reform</a>, outlining the basis of an intellectual foundation. The paper I wrote was not merely proposing a democratic reform programme. It was proposing a core mission for the party which sets it apart from any competitor.&nbsp;Parliament is the problemThe issue for me is illustrated quite well in a recent speech given by Dr David Starkey to the New Culture Forum. He talks about a restoration centred on the sovereignty of parliament. He argued that Brexit has failed to "take back control" because powers are now divested to quangos, treaties, devolved assemblies and courts etc. What he fails to note is that Parliament did all this to us in the first place. Parliament is the problem. There are no constraints on parliament giving away powers that are not theirs to give away.Consequently, we need something declarative in nature, that the people are sovereign, and that anything that dilutes the sovereignty of the people, or in any way compels or mutes their parliament must, at the very least, be subject to a referendum. A People's Sovereignty Act, if you like.&nbsp;In effect, what we need is something that stands above parliament and enshrines the sovereign rights of the people as the ultimate authority. That inevitably leads to the abolition of the Supreme Court, which would take on a subordinate role as a constitutional court, with its powers heavily constrained by a constitution.Every malevolent anti-democratic act of the last thirty years has been done to us without our consent, because there are no real controls on what they do between elections, and our general elections are a wholly inadequate means of holding our politicians to account. We need further democratic reforms, not least so we don't have a long succession of unelected and unwanted prime ministers. Tinkering with the voting system doesn't even begin to address the democratic deficit.Such reforms are essential because most of the key problems we have are downstream of decisions taken to bind parliament to obsolete conventions, treaties and arbitrary international targets.&nbsp;Habib, among others, is hesitant about a written constitution, and suggests such a proposal would be vulnerable to ridicule. To which I say… so what? Ukip’s policy of leaving the EU was the subject of ridicule. We didn’t care because we knew it was the right thing to do, and that the public would eventually come to our side if we kept making the arguments.That’s what a political movement is supposed to do. You set out your ideas and ambitions, and you go out and argue them. You start the debates, and you win them. You are better able to do this if you actually have fully fleshed out policies. Policies have to reflect core values, and not simply plucked from the ether because they are crowd pleasers.I take the view that Reform should be leading the debate by advancing innovative and detailed policies that demonstrate the paucity of thinking in the establishment parties. Though key messaging must be simple and policies must connect with the aspirations of voters, messaging must also be strategic, and consistent with the intellectual foundation. Policies should be instruments designed to deliver your explicitly defined vision.You can hang on to your share of the vote with populist tropes, but to grow, you need to establish credibility and competence. You have to convince opinion formers in the media (and on social media) that you have the ideas, and the knowledge to pull it off. Independent right wing media critics do not presently speak well of Reform - and that's bad news because they're speaking directly to Reform's potential activist base.&nbsp;I suspect at this point that voters have already made their minds up about Reform, and if Reform wants to survive it needs a rethink and a relaunch. It should be formulating a twenty-year plan.&nbsp;In that time, it will find itself up against a renewed conservative movement forged from the wreckage of the Tory party, and it will enjoy more insider status. It will be robustly conservative and tick many of the boxes voters are looking at. However, it will stop short of the kind of radicalism Britain needs. It may commit to quitting the ECHR and limiting immigration (along the lines of the Jenrick report), but it won't be enough. We still need something like Reform in the game to hold their feet to the fire. To that end, it needs to be more original and more radical. &nbsp;This analysis is the result of close scrutiny of Reform over a while now. I think the cracks are beginning to show. Unless Reform can regain the confidence of &nbsp;its natural supporters, it probably won’t exist in five years time. There’s a lot of work ahead if it is to survive.There is a difference between a political party and a movement. Right now Reform is a political party bidding to lead a fragmented movement. The movement is split between the Tories, the SDP, remnant Ukip, and half a dozen nativist crank parties. A political party is the delivery mechanism for the hopes and aspirations of that movement. The party that wins their loyalty is the one that can present as the best hope of realising those aspirations. It must prove it has the vision, the ideas, the competence and the credibility to deliver.I recall back in 1997 volunteering for the local branch of the Referendum Party. Nothing that was achieved could have happened without Jimmy Goldsmith, but the RP wouldn’t have got anywhere without people throughout the land pounding the pavements. I remember our branch was a close knit team. We became good friends and we enjoyed what we did together, and we were proud of what we were doing. It is that energy, conviction and dedication a party must inspire. That is how the Labour movement came to power. That is how Ukip secured a referendum.The difference is that these were movements built at the local level, backed by a competent national campaigning organisation with a core mission that its members believed in. If you don’t have that, you are nowhere.&nbsp;As such, if we do not see major changes from Reform it will become part of the problem. Yet another noisemaker that does nothing useful with the exposure afforded it. If the leadership thinks all is well, and there is no problem to address, then we should give it up as a bad job. If the response to criticism is defensiveness and denial, it will not learn from mistakes, and will keep repeating them. The rest of us can't afford to waste energy on it.

Reform - a nothing burger?

Healthy organic nutritious diet. Plenty of foods on the wooden white table.

When exploring any political policy, food is a universal factor.&nbsp; Many UK food prices have doubled over the past 5 years, and we should arm ourselves with an appreciation of bigger picture - provided here by working East Anglian farmer and WOTE founder, Peter Dawe. The years 2021 through to 2024 have seen radical problems in the food sector. While the system was not working well before 2021, it did more or less grow enough food for the world’s population.Due to Covid, the Russia-Ukraine war, other communal violence and climate issues (uncommonly poor growing weather across the globe, if you do not subscribe to climate change!) the Global Food System has been set off-balance. &nbsp;As a result, (I contend) the global food system has stopped working, and is in danger of failing to feed a significant part of the global population in 2024 onwards.Note: The Global Food System is a very complex system that interfaces with all other aspects of global society. This paper of necessity simplifies that system.&nbsp;Farmers, on every continent are protesting. While they may seem to be protesting about divergent local issues, they are all discontent because they are making significant losses on growing food. The catalyst for the problems is a consequence of the Ukraine War. This cause a number of major problems.&nbsp;• The export of cereals and food oils across the Black Sea was disrupted, cause a massive spike in the price of cereals and food oils on the global market.&nbsp;• The disruption of minerals from Russia to Europe causing a massive reduction in the production of fertiliser, and a consequent massive spike in its price and availability.While in most market economies these matters are adjusted for through the “Market”, the problem with the food production is that there is a minimum 12-month lag, due to the seasons. So we have a particular sequence of events.• The spike in cereal prices enriched those who had stock of cereals, typically the grain merchants.• Due to the spike in cereal price, The Meat, Egg and Dairy sector were immediately affected, however, the merchants, supermarkets etc. refused to change the prices they paid for their produce (supported by politicians who did not want “inflation”) This resulted in immediate major financial losses for the sector.• The spike in fertiliser prices meant that many farmers could not buy enough fertiliser, as they did not have enough working capital. Those farmers that did have enough ended up with high input costs to their next year's production.• Due to the massive world-wide increase in the cost of energy, People budgeted, by reducing the amount of meat they consumed. (Global meat consumption went down by whole percentage points).• At the same time, because meat and dairy producers were reducing their stock animals, there was a glut in meat availability, lowering the price farmers got for their meat.• For poor countries that have large imports of energy, food and fertiliser, their free hard currency was used up during the price spikes. Resulting in their inability to buy in the subsequent years.Moving on the following year and more problems!• With a massive reduction in the production of meat, eggs and dairy, the demand for feed cereals plummeted, resulting in a price crash, feed wheat is now at £160 tonne, with production cost at over £200 per tonne, i.e. A typical cereal farmer is losing £40 a tonne on their 2023 crop.• The cost of living issues are still with the people, so meat consumption has not yet fully recovered.The current consequences ... • Poor countries are still experiencing high food costs, due to local shortages, due to their hard currency shortage. (Much of Africa, parts of Asia, Central America and some Oceana countries.&nbsp;• With poor countries unable to buy food, the global market is depressed.• So farmers have not started re-stocking. (In the US, the number of calves is lower than any year in the last 100 years!).• The price of fertiliser is showing no sign of going back to pre-2021 prices, so many farmers are reducing their sowing areas and reducing inputs, with a significant lowering of global cereal production.• If and when the meat industry restocks, this will REDUCE the availability of meat.Special events in Europe• The environmental lobby has persuaded our politicians that paying for environmental services, rather than food is a good idea. So many farmers faced with loss making food production are taking the tax-payers money and have become “park keepers”.• Using land for “Energy”, be it solar farms or energy crops (Bio diesel, AD plants, wood chip…) is now a better and low risk alternative to food crops• The societal norm of anyone “getting their hands dirty” being of low status, means farmers cannot recruit workers.&nbsp;• The push-back against low-wage migrant labour has made that way of recruitment more difficult• Many farmers are near or passed retirement age, so are looking for retirement exits.Specifically in the UK • Solar Farms are a very attractive alternate use of land• “Sustainable Farm Initiative” is now also an attractive low risk alternative use of land• “Development Rights” allowing redundant farm buildings to be repurposed for non-farming use means that farming infrastructure &nbsp;is being destroyed.• Regulation on farms has become so onerous, 50% of a farmer's time is “in the office”• Regulation of food production has resulted in very restricted options for selling. Leading to a power imbalance between producers and processors, which the processors have abused.The consequences• Globally, food insecurity is now very high in many poor countries• Globally, people are losing their options for high quality food• In the UK, food production is likely to reduce by up to 20% in 2024!• Up to 10% of currently farmed land is being permanently taken out of production (Possibly 50% in Wales)• While farm owners will enjoy some return on their land. Tenants, farmworkers and those involved in food production and processing are likely to see some 20% redundancies.• UK GDP will fall by 3% due to loss of farm and farm related incomes.(Percentages are my personal informed estimates - PD) Part 2. April 25th 2024 (work in progress) The Global Food System (GFS) is failing under market forces.Governments fall if they fail to feed their population, thus every government has food security as one of their main pillars. An exception is where an oppressive despotic regime may be able to hold on to power through violence alone. For most of the world, the provision of food is now dominated by global rather than national issues. Whilst much of the needed calorific food is typically grown within a nation, there are a number of countries that are either large importers or large exporters of calories. Regardless of where production is, they are all subject to the global market in fertilisers and pesticides.&nbsp;This paper includes my observations on the current workings of the Global Food System.Fertiliser and pesticide&nbsp;Fertiliser and pesticide production is concentrated into a few hands. The three main fertiliser chemicals are water soluble compounds of Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphate (NKP). Nitrogen is made from Hydrogen produced from natural gas in a few massive chemical plants across the world. Because Nitrogen is seen as a strategic resource, most major countries have a plant. However, Potassium and Phosphate are based on mined mineral-rich deposits which are scarce and localised, resulting in a few nations/corporations having a strategic stranglehold.&nbsp;It is increasingly the case that these important resources are being withheld from poorer countries as they are a poor credit risk. Thus lowering their productivity, driving them ever poorer. Even in the wealthier countries, ability to buy can determine where these are deployed. When farmers have suffered losses due to weather or other problems, they may be unable to finance the cash flow needed between use and harvest.Global trade in foodBefore global markets, local produce was consumed by local consumers at the local price. Global trade of food and fertiliser has been captured by multinational corporations. These corporations, with their singular goal of self-interest, are now managing the GFS to their corporate advantage. “Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus, collectively known as the ABCD traders, share a significant presence in a range of agricultural basic commodities, both fertiliser and food. Controlling, for example, as much as 90 per cent of the global grain trade. These corporations move commodities around the globe.&nbsp;As a result, when farmers' crops fail, the corporations move food into the area, thus farmers never enjoy shortage premiums. However, when there is a bumper crop, the price falls and the corporations move the surplus to shortage areas. If this trade ensured that farmers enjoyed a reasonable return on the work, this system would be one that could be applauded. Unfortunately, these corporations are taking all the value in the GFS. Farming, worldwide, is loss making, with many farmers needing to get money from second jobs, diaspora remittances, or government hand-outs.The effectiveness of these corporations' extortion is such that when governments put money into farming, they arbitrage these payments away from the farmer into their coffers. (Demonstrated when the New Zealand government stopped putting money into farms, after a short adjustment period, the financial performance of farms did not change.)National Food TradeWhile high value foods can be transported using planes, trains and lorries to rich markets, there are some foods that are difficult to transport due to their short shelf-life. In many parts of the world, food distribution is controlled by another small number of processors and retailers. Here it is they who oppress the farmers and growers. Using their control of the consumer market to impose onerous contracts on the farmers.&nbsp;ConsequencesRural migrationThere is now a global shortage of agricultural workers. Even countries with high unemployment cannot provide the labour needed on farms, as the farmers cannot pay them enough, relative to the “benefits” enjoyed by people living in towns and cities. There is a massive migration from rural to urban. In the past this was just the “surplus” sons and daughters, now it is all of the children and often even the parents.Even farm managers and owners are giving up, and there are few young people entering the profession due to the poor pay, hard working conditions and the uncertainty.Land that can be farmed using high levels of mechanisation can still be viable. Interestingly this is the land which is being bought by private equity and other absentee landlords for long term investment. Land and crops that are difficult to mechanise are now being abandoned. Small rice paddy, fruit and some vegetables farms are being abandoned, as are farms where the fields are too small.With so little value being retained by the farmers, and most of the economic activity done away from the local economy with multinational corporations ( Machines, Oil, PKN, processing ) the rural economy is also in free-fall. Meaning that shops and other infrastructure are closing or being neglected, further destroying reasons to remain.Fertilisers and pesticidesFood affordability&nbsp;With all of the value being captured by a few corporations, the general population has little money to buy food. While urban areas are supported by governments, rural areas are neglected, but eventually governments are overwhelmed by the cost of feeding their population. When this happens, countries typically become ungovernable, as seen already in a number of countries, with more looking likely to succumb in the coming years.Once a country becomes ungovernable, productivity drops further, however, ironically, the economics of growing one's own food becomes viable, as the multi-nationals cannot or will not operate in such conditions.Currently the global loss of production is being covered by the exploitation of newly cleared land in S America, Africa and other tropical forests and jungle around the world, and by deploying technology to improve yields.Monopoly abuseAs we have seen in history, when there is a food shortage, the price goes up massively. As an essential, people will even sell the children for their next meal when they are starving (Afghanistan). With the Global food system, (and national food systems) under the control of a few corporations and organisations. They can extort very high profits by creating a shortage. This has repeatedly happened in the global markets when there have been “shocks” of wheat and rice shortages. It is in the interests of the GFS corporations to ensure there is never quite enough food. To this end, they have persuaded governments to use crops for energy, to mop-up any surplus that might reduce their profits. Be that Bio-ethanol, Bio Diesel or anaerobic digesters producing methane.&nbsp;Comments and debate at the X account of <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk">@wote.uk</a> please...

The WOTE.uk Federation 2025

Blog: the Revolution starts here...

Halt... who goes there...?

From high trust rural Yorkshire to 3rd world Londonistan

We need a grown-up debate about British agriculture.

Starting to drain the Education swamp...

Reform - a nothing burger?

Background to the Global Food System in 2024