At the height of the reign of terror that engulfed late 18th century France after the overthrow of the monarchy, the philosopher Jacques Mallet du Pam wrote that “the Revolution devours its own children”. We do not have the blood-soaked brutality of the guillotine in today’s Britain, but there is an echo of the self-destruction that stems from ideological zeal.
Long renowned for its pragmatism, our country is in the midst of an extraordinary social revolution. Without any electoral mandate, politicians of both leading parties have presided over the transformation of our society through the deliberate collapse of our borders, the erosion of national identity, and the doctrinal attachment to the gospel of diversity.
In this twisted world, our heritage is turned into a source of shame, our flag into cause of offence. Fanatically determined to enforce the new orthodoxy, our authorities are pathetically enfeebled when it comes to tackling illegal immigration. British people now sense they are increasingly treated as second-class citizens in their own land.
But there are signs the public will no longer put up with systematic degradation of our nationhood. A mood of unrest is growing, reflected in the protests across the country at hotels used to accommodate asylum seekers. The undemocratic political revolution has pushed tolerance beyond breaking point, triggering a counter-revolution through the surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.
As a result, the traditional two-party system is teetering on the brink of collapse, with one recent poll putting Reform on 35% – 15 points ahead of Labour. Indeed, Sir Keir Starmer’s party is now in crisis, beset by record-breaking unpopularity and inner turmoil.
But Kemi Badenoch’s Tories have not benefited at all from Labour’s slide. On the contrary, they have fallen even further behind. It is likely at the next election, they will slide into irrelevance, becoming a rump of no more than 40 MPs. That would be a remarkable turnaround for an organisation that has held power for longer than any other party in the history of western democracy.
Only six years ago, in 2019, they won decisively under Boris Johnson, but they are now paying the price for their surrender to the wokery and embrace of mass immigration. Their spectacular misjudgements will not easily be forgiven or forgotten by voters.
Farage, by far the most effective campaigner in British politics, will ensure that. He highlighted the issue of the small boats long before any other politician, just as he set the agenda last week with his call for mass deportations of illegal migrants.
No party has a guaranteed permanent place in the constitution. The Liberals, for instance, were a dominant force in Victorian and Edwardian politics. In 1906, they enjoyed a crushing landslide and were to remain in office – either on their own or as part of a coalition – for the next 16 years. Yet the seeds of their long-term demise could be found in that 1906 contest.
Under a secret pact, the Liberals agreed to withdraw candidates in 31 constituencies to give the newly formed Labour party a free run against the Tories. The deal succeeded in both maximising the anti-Conservative vote and creating a significant Labour Parliamentary group for the first time. But ultimately the move backfired disastrously as the Liberals were supplanted by Labour in the early 1920s as the main left-wing party – their MPs plummeting from 158 in 1923 to just 40 in 1924.
The Tory leader Stanley Baldwin discreetly encouraged this change, believing Labour would turn out to be more reliable than the Liberals. The Socialists, he said, should be encouraged “to believe in our system rather than go hunting in Moscow”.
Today some historians draw a parallel between the downfall of the Liberals then and the current meltdown in the Conservatives. But the crucial difference is that both the main parties face catastrophe as a result of their betrayal of Britain’s values. Sir Keir Starmer accused Farage this week of “scaremongering” about the state of Britain. It is Starmer who should be running scared as Reform threatens to smash the failing duopoly at Westminster.