But to keep hold of the true believers, they dare not moderate too much. There is, of course, great value to the party in having GB News pump out propaganda all day, and in its ability to dominate the narrative on Elon Musk’s X platform. But there is also a cost to becoming overly preoccupied by the concerns of the most fervent. The arrival of an even more extreme alternative, in Rupert Lowe’s openly racist Restore Britain party, is also dragging Reform further rightwards as it tries to avoid accusations of milquetoast acquiescence to the concerns of woke liberals. Having successfully destroyed the cordon sanitaire around British politics, it is finding it hard to erect a new one.
