Nigel Farage makes out Reform are UK's most patriotic party - if so this must stop now
If there's one thing I truly despise about modern Britain, it's that we're dripping in Americana. I've nothing against Americans. In fact, every single one I've come to know has been extraordinarily warm, polite and generous.
But what I can't stand is the constant feeling that to be an Englishman today means a tacit acceptance that you live in an unofficial 51st state.
America is everywhere. From the moment you open your smartphone and access social media, you're bombarded with enthusiastic west coast accents screaming at you.
If you've opted to be sensible and read a book, you'll still end up feeling like Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 protagonist who is dismayed at his wife's watching of wall-sized televisions. Because someone, somewhere near you, will be blasting out American exuberance. Which brings me to Reform UK.
Nigel Farage's party has, like all parties, embarrassed itself in the past. The first time they forced me to cringe was when I noticed that awful slogan: Let's Make Britain Great.
I couldn't bear the fact that a party for disaffected British conservatives was apeing Donald Trump's Make America Great Again. This wasn't because I particularly dislike Trump, but because a party that stands for patriotic voters, and makes a great deal of this fact, should not be imitating another country.
They seemed to be at it again today, at the Reform UK party conference in Birmingham, where Let's Save Britain baseball caps (pictured above) sparked obvious parallels with Trump's iconic red MAGA hats.
Nigel Farage does a great deal to talk Britain up and is obviously, like me, proud of his country. He should be commended for being unabashed in his zeal for this island, rather than embarrassed like so many posh political fops.
But do we really need this party to echo Donald Trump's Republicans? What have they to do - aside from Trump's Scottish ancestry and golf course - with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
This sycophancy speaks to a deeper problem that has emerged on the British Online Right in recent years, most notably in the form of conservative podcasts.
In these shows, everything seems to be viewed through an American lens. Even when they're not talking about America, they might make reference to the Anglo-Saxon Protestant work ethic, a clear American intrusion that echoes their White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) designation.
I often find these podcasters to be far closer to USA "conservatives" (read: Republicans) than the British kind. And when I don't find them to be so, I'm still shocked at how obsessed with the happenings of the US they seem to be.
As for the Americans themselves, I find their conservatives to be far more fixated on free market capitalism than conservatism requires.
Which brings me to my final point. For years now, the mainstream right wing of British politics has been trying to convince voters that they are the heirs to Margaret Thatcher.
This stupid tactic plunged to its nadir during the Tory leadership contest between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, which was particularly embarrassing because at the time they were in part fighting for future votes from the Red Wall.
Not everyone, I'd wager a large number in fact, of people who vote for Reform want the heir to Thatcher. In fact, the political scientist Matthew Goodwin emphatically reassured a pre-election debate audience that the party need not be defined by Farage's Thatcherist instincts and that it could be built from the bottom up into a voice for those who are socially conservative but believe the state can play a positive financial role when necessary.
I can't speak for other conservatives, but when I see Reform UK apeing America with slogans and baseball caps, it makes me wonder if they'll copy that country's right-wing politics too. If its intention is to worship markets, let them rip and damn the consequences, then they won't be winning my vote.
