Coming to a Town Near You to Remind You Just How Bloody Awful It Is: Inside Reform UK’s Chaotic Local Elections Campaign Launch

Before I launch into yet another article about Reform UK, I feel compelled to say that ‘Reform will fix it’ — with all the grim imagery it conjures, and all the inevitable Jimmy Savile jokes that could be made at their expense — is quite possibly the worst, most tone-deaf and ill-conceived political slogan ever devised.

With that in mind -

It seems fitting in a way that it would be used by arguably the worst political party of the lot.

Last week following Rachel Reeves’ not exactly stellar spending review, Nigel Farage launched Reform UK's local elections campaign in Birmingham, a city once casually dismissed as a “a dump” by the very same Conservatives who now make up the bulk of Reform’s base.

The event was pitched as a chance for Farage to hammer home his usual message that all the major parties are the same, and only Reform offers a genuine alternative to Britain’s political status quo.

The problem, of course, is that Reform UK is not a viable alternative at all. In many ways, it’s more of the same — the same cynicism, the same empty promises, the same old circus with a different-coloured rosette. And to say that about a party supposedly built on tearing up the rulebook is, perhaps, the most damning thing you can say about them and probably the worst insult of all that you can use against them.

There’s plenty of context behind why Birmingham was chosen as the launchpad for their campaign — chiefly the idea that the city, along with its floundering council, serves as a convenient, living metaphor for a Britain “broken” by the Conservatives and left in a state of disrepair by Labour. A mess, in other words, that only Reform claims it can clear up.

The problem is, the message is all wrong. And the way they communicate it is worse.

The reason why is interesting: