‘Wait, that’s OUR policy! - How Labour humiliated Reform on defence and foreign policy, but now run the gamut of punishing the wrong people

The funny thing about Labour supposedly pinching two of Reform’s policies - on defence and foreign aid cuts - is that, for many Reform voters, this is probably the first time they’ve even realised the party had these policies in the first place. Those on ‘the Right’ now criticising Labour for stealing parts of Reform’s so-called “contract” are likely only just learning about it themselves.

There’s a degree of hypocrisy here: if those now outraged by Labour’s supposed plagiarism weren’t aware of these policies back then, they can hardly claim to be retrospectively offended that someone else has ‘pinched’ them now.

Similarly, those now loudly insisting these were Reform’s policies all along - trying to reclaim them - must also acknowledge that the “contract” is obsolete. So does it really matter if Labour cherry-picks parts of it for political expediency?

Remember -

The “contract” was abandoned by Reform just two months after the election. Why? Because it was dismissed as mostly unworkable. Critics and policy experts derided much of it as “a joke,” “actually mad,” “Liz Truss economics on steroids,” and riddled with costings that were “out by tens of billions of pounds per year.”

Reform’s supporters should be questioning the feasibility of Labour’s recycled policies rather than fixating on who originally came up with them. But if they took that approach - and criticised Labour too much - they’d also be at risk of doing the most dangerous thing of all: self-reflection.

On the other hand, not reading the “contract” was a missed opportunity for Reform’s supporters.

If more of them had actually read the “contract” at the time - along with other policy proposals just like it - they might have reached the same conclusion as those of us who did (as I did back then): by dismissing it and deciding not to vote for them in 2024. Not only was the so-called “contract” mostly a joke, but so were the people that wrote it - although that doesn’t bode too well for Labour if they’re recycling bits of it.

The more important aspect is that another reason Reform abandoned the “contract” was that, after the election, Farage and Co. realised they had a slim chance of influencing the next government. As a result, they scrambled to professionalise the party, and abandoning the “contract” was the first stage.

Of course, this presents a significant problem: how does a political party (that isn’t actually a legitimate political party) go from five MPs - ropey and ridiculous as they are - to the 326 needed to form a majority government, without most of them being just as ropey and ridiculous as those already in the Commons?

Well -