John Harris writes: “Reform is apparently in deep trouble, yet also still in with a serious chance. How come?” (Don’t discount Reform because it’s had a bad year. In our angry, fragile democracy, anything can happen, 20 September). Because it is a cult, just as Maga is a cult. It is sustained by faith, not fact. It offers simple solutions to problems of such complexity that most of us are incapable of understanding them.
Reform UK would not exist without Nigel Farage. All his other “parties” only existed because of him. Its self-designation as outside “the establishment” is one of the few truths to be relied on – in the sense that it’s beyond the pale. It is an ethics-free zone. Farage is the tool of the US hard right in the UK. All that’s missing is the Christian end-times nihilism, and not many would be surprised if that clawed its way to the surface soon.
