The populist Right marches on, while a beleaguered Left struggles to be heard. First piece as Contributing Editor @unherd 👇👇👇 unherd.com/2025/09/how-starm…

Excellent analysis of the UK political doom loop and the distant possibility of what a Faragist government might model itself after

‘Liberal Britain, watching Farage’s ascent in horror, has not yet processed the full implications of a Reform government.’ @DespoticInroad👇 buff.ly/UxklqQ1

‘Our interregnum may be reaching a Caesarist conclusion, or else reaching catastrophe.’ @DespoticInroad👇 buff.ly/UxklqQ1

Team Zarah lads seriously talking about “untold damage to the party”. OFC the origin of ALL of this insanity are: A) Corbyn’s suicidal decision to launch a farcical “member-led” & “democratic” process, inviting open, embarrassing fallouts & allowing every Trot/ultra-Left sect to latch themselves onto it; and B) the fact that Sultana unilaterally launched the party TWICE in an attempt to bolster her own position, the 2nd time asking for £££ from 800k people under totally false pretences, triggering an ICO legal investigation & opening YP up to crippling fines. The money she raised from this (potentially very illegal) kamikaze strategy has yet to be transferred to YP and is currently sat in a company account of which she is the sole director. ON TOP of this, Max’s Team Zarah-aligned faction released their “programme” demands this week, which included calls for criminal trials for journalists and MPs for “inciting hate crime” and implementing the “social murder” of austerity & failed Covid suppression measures. It also called for the nationalisation of the banks, energy, transport and several other sectors WITHOUT COMPENSATION. To do otherwise would be “untold damage to the party”, comrades!! Uphold the correct line of Sultana-Shanly Thought! Onwards to certain victory! 🤪🤪🤪

There is a space for a hard-edged brand of politics that combines elements of a free-market with statism. But, as of now, Reform is without a governing ideology. @DespoticInroad👇 buff.ly/UxklqQ1

Worth following these. One of the good guys 👇

Would Farage govern as a Meloni, or an Orban? We’re getting mixed signals in the directions of two poles of New Right populism. But eventually Reform will have to settle on a governing ideology.👇 unherd.com/2025/11/nigel-far…

What a Reform government could look like - my politics column in this week’s New Statesman. Pick up a copy from your local maximum security supermarket.

Some in Your Party wanted a properly timed & pre-planned launch to do Mamdani-esque strategy with viral campaigns + relentless focus on core bread-and-butter issues – housing, wages, NHS etc. (as well as Gaza OFC) – BUT INSTEAD they've spent the last few months on the real important debates: 🇮🇱Israel's diplomatic status 🕸️is a federated social movement better than an insurgent party or an umbrella alliance? 🤔Zionism — 2 states or 1 state? 💣NATO membership 🇺🇦is Zelenskyy a “friend of the workers”? 🧁should we nationalise Greggs? This kind YP messaging is funny: “Zohran shows our politics can win”. Well, kind of: Hard Left Candidacy absolutely CAN win in big cities full of downwardly mobile graduates + public sector professionals (probably at the expense of abandoning large swathes of working-class, provincial Britain to RW populists, but still). YP **could** (in alliance with The Greens) even SUPPLANT LABOUR, as THE party of the university towns & urban metropoles. BUT in order to do that, you basically need to: A) stop repeatedly shooting yourselves/each other in the face; B) be vaguely likeable/normie-coded; and C) adopt a strategy that downplays/totally disavows all the mental shit you usually spend your time obsessing over (Mamdani understood this obvious dynamic and consciously substituted “defund the police” & “abolish prisons” with “the rent is too high” & “free childcare”).

To criticise transnational courts like the ECtHR is not to oppose human rights, but to ask who defines them. When vaguely defined “rights” are wielded against popular sovereignty, they become tools of control rather than freedom. My latest: unherd.com/2025/11/will-we-e…

By far the best take on the New York mayoral race's relevance to British politics If you're saying the lesson is: communicate well, be populist on cost of living - well duh But trying to import wider lessons to a UK context from a race unique even by US standards good luck

A political programme is important. Policy is important, yes. But A LOT of electoral success comes down to likability, relatability & being the type of person who people would enjoy having a drink with. Mamdani, in this context = a breath of fresh air among a Left that usually comes across as chronically miserable + obsessed with weird bullshit + prone to bouts of angry hectoring about weird bullshit. Some people might base their votes on a materialist reading of manifesto commitments or rational, self-conscious assessments of their own class interests. But good vibes + rizz go a LONG way.

"The wilder the Right’s rhetoric became, the more it underscored what Mamdani actually is: a familiar figure of the gentry Left who could appeal especially to New York’s stressed educated professionals." ✍️ @SohrabAhmari unherd.com/newsroom/how-maga…

The realest spit

Possibly the strangest man to ever operate in British politics. (This is real).

TRANSLATION: “I would like to be leader of the Labour Party”

I am 100% sure if someone like Mamdani tried to stand as London mayor Labour would block him.

‘Sometimes the readings are very good. Sometimes they’re actively torturous. This is largely besides the point.’ Read @providenceluvr on London’s fledgling literary scene 👇 buff.ly/sTWGUx4

An interesting speech from a leading REFORMer, implicitly calling into question Farage’s recent statist turn. Gawain identifies the New Right split between “conservative authoritarianism” and “Whiggish libertarianism”, but actually the REFORM contradictions are far sharper. The manifesto will be fascinating to see (when it eventually comes), because it has to reconcile: 👉small-state/low-tax/low-spending promises with improved service delivery 👉welfare reduction promises with the party’s triple lock pension & welfare-dependent constituencies 👉free market/low regulation promises with nods toward “industrial policy/industrial strategy” + nationalisation 👉sound money/balanced budget/maintaining (Gilt-trading) investor confidence promises with radical BOE reforms The MAJOR Q is: does a Farage-led REF gov. operate like a Meloni or like an Orban, i.e. does he govern as a traditional centre-rightist with a tougher line on migration/woke (see Italy today); or does he govern as an Hungarian/Polish-style populist combining high-welfare nationalism & big state interventionism with strong borders + authoritarian creep? “Whiggish Libertarianism”, FWIW, isn’t even a serious option, being fundamentally unsuited to dealing with the problems of the age. Adopting a small-state + free/open market dogma is for the birds when Trump is upending globalisation, the Germans/EU have belatedly discovered strategic public investment, and the Chinese are creating the future with top-down dirigiste development at breakneck speed.