Konstantin Kisin

Why reform has no choice.

Over recent days, there's been much debate in British politics about the future of Nigel Farage's Reform Party.

Cemented by the defection of Robert Jenrick, the Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor, who was pushed by Tory leader Cammy Badenoch as he was about to jump ship, reform is developing a reputation for moving to the centre.

Jenrick followed in the footsteps of a number of senior or formerly senior conservatives, including Nadeem Zahawi, Nadine Doris, Jake Berry, and others.

As a curious aside, the last time I saw Jake Berry was on Question Time, when he challenged me on my criticism of Net Zero to explain that Net Zero is the solution, not the problem.

We have to let go some of our obsessions like Net Zero and so on, and we will find out if the government is prepared to do that.

OK.

Man there in the glasses.

I think it's good for your voters to hear that.

I'm sure Conservative Party voters will be pleased.

The program was recorded as Nadeem Zahavi was in the process of being sacked as Conservative Party chairman because he'd failed to declare that HMRC was in the middle of an investigation into his personal tax affairs when he was appointed to various ministerial positions.

This anecdote alone gives you a flavor of the sorts of concerns many have raised about the increasing torrification of reform.

Last night, it was confirmed that another MP, Andrew Rosindell, had defected to reform, bringing the number of reform MPs to seven, of whom more than half are now Tory defectors.

Lee Anderson, Danny Kruger, Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell himself.

The worry for many...

is that as conservative refugees become more numerous than native reformers within the party, the center of gravity will shift away from reform's radical agenda towards the very policies and personalities they so thoroughly rejected at the last election.

Reform's defiant position against the failed status quo was what won them their legion of supporters.

Now some feel they're cozying up to it.

Personnel is policy, after all, and having forced out tough-talking right-wingers like Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib, reform appears to be going slightly vegan.

It's rare for me to be accused of naive optimism, but in this instance, I do not actually share these concerns for a number of reasons which we'll come to shortly.