Farage should rule without a cabinet

A new system of Government

It is amusing to see the Thralls just line up, as Farage’s strategy of studiously ignoring their claims to represent ‘The Reform Base’ pays massive electoral dividends. The same online trolls who denounced J’accuse for not believing in ‘Zero Seats’ for the 2024 election have spent the months having a hissy tantrum about Rupert Lowe, now Farage is apparently ‘the gaffer’ once more.

One of the downsides of the democratisation of communications is that the demographic who should populate the heaving mass of sans-culottes or beer hall brawlers are now able to contaminate political discourse with their frantic, frightened inner monologues. I would gently invite these individuals and their pamphlets to stick to the footy until they are instructed to take to the streets. I can only suffer being proven right so many times. Stop helplessly straining against the chains, and put your shoulder to the oar.

Reform’s decision to put forward Sarah Pochin as the candidate for Runcorn and Helsby was interesting, not because of her past wokeness but because it indicates that Farage intends to continue to populate his party with men and women from nowhere instead of the many prominent journalists/commentators who are lobbying him constantly for an attempt at a seat. Why put her forward and palm off one of your only former MPs, Andrea Jenkyns, to become ‘Mayor’ of Greater Lincolnshire? Why has Suella Braverman *still* not defected?

After the Lowe episode, many ‘SW1’ hacks outed themselves as duffers when they said that this would make it harder for Reform to attract defectors. Reform is not trying to attract defectors from the Conservative Party, or any other party, reportedly MPs who make such advances have already been rebuffed. Despite the buckets of wine Farage is capable of remembering what happened when UKIP took on defectors such as Douglas Carswell; who immediately positioned himself as a ‘moderniser’ and attempted to wrest control of the party.

He has no reason to risk a similar episode when he is polling above both the Conservative Party and Labour, and the Government has no means to materially improve people’s standard of living over the next four years. The man who physically embodies being ‘anti-establishment’ is holding all of the cards and he does not need to share the limelight with anybody else. It is for *that* reason that I will put forward a prediction that Zia Yusuf is not going to survive in his position for very long. He has made many internal enemies within the Reform hierarchy but has also put himself forward too much. His primary source of power, his money, will become ever more diluted as the massive flood of money Reform enjoys in the coming months flows heavier and heavier.

Farage is completely correct to continue cutting down ‘rising stars’ in this fashion. A massive structural problem in British politics is the internal politicking that the press love to write about. With the exception of the early Coalition there is always allegedly a leader in waiting, be it Brown or Rishi. There is always an adviser out there who wants to advance their career by forcing a regicide, always a Cummings poised to launch another Comms Coup through damaging, destabilising leaks. Beneath that layer, ministers are always distracted by attempting to advance their own careers over focusing on their briefs. Whoever Farage does not cut down will inevitably engage in these pointless charades, as so the focus required to implement a genuinely revolutionary Government within a Parliamentary system is extremely difficult.

It has been put forward by some that Reform are going to be incapable of governing if Farage does not allow some genuine talent to rise within his own party - Who is going to be Reform’s Chancellor of the Exchequer? It is true that you cannot leave important departments up to the whims of out and out spivs, or your Government will abruptly collapse. Although it must be repeated that the selection process in both parties is hilariously bad, and that most intakes since 2005 have been comprised principally of local councillors and diversity hires; the Government’s front bench includes a woman who fabricated parts of her CV and the opposition is led by a woman who achieved a B and 2 Ds at A-Level.

If Farage is wise, he will sidestep this patronage system in it’s entirety and instead lead a Cabinet comprised entirely of political appointments from the House of Lords. This move would allow Farage to appoint people with technocratic abilities which far exceed those of “David Lammy” to run his Government. That much of the ‘elite human capital’ does not agree with Reform politically is irrelevant in this situation, if Farage approaches the CEO of every large investment bank in Britain and asks if they would like to become a Lord, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer at least one of them will go along with it; ditto for senior individuals in other policy areas like Defence or Health.

They will have, within their networks, special advisers who are not just ex Guido employees but impressive young men and women who will be able to exert much more operational influence over the Departments their boss assigns them to. As these Lords will not have their own political constituency, they will not be in a position to launch a coup, and if they begin to stray ideologically Farage will be able to sack them without any backlash, meaning his executive team could maintain total authority over them. As successful, happy people they will also not know any lobby journalists so the risk of them leaking approaches nil. “Yeah, yeah, let me take you to Chez Antoinette mate, come on, I’ll pay for yer Bavette!” None of them will have a ‘history’ with these individuals, who can sometimes resort to blackmail to extort information from their subjects. These semi alcoholics could be made redundant in a single fell swoop.

This would also put an end to the fiction of ‘Cabinet’, which serves only a forum for leaking and briefing. If the purpose of Reform is to ‘take back control’, then part of taking that control back is to centralise power to the executive, instead of leaving it in the hands of the SW1 sewer, which will ultimately conspire to destroy his political project if it starts working properly.

The Commons should be packed with more Sarah Pochins, low agency but relatively dependable individuals who can be controlled by his team easily. Starmer has managed to use the Labour Party’s recovery from the historic low point of 2019 to pack his benches with ‘Starmtrooper’ loyalists who ensure he wins votes against the left of his party on contentious issues. Farage now has the opportunity to lead a party comprised only of loyalists, even if he only manages a majority of thirty in 2029 it will be much more effective than the Tories 80 seat majority because there will not be distinct factions internally, so long as he refuses to allow anybody with any following or profile onto the selection list. MPs today are glorified social workers and the quality of debate recorded in Hansard is leagues below that of schoolboys in the early 20th century, so whilst it is a shame that this arrangement leans against the liberal ideal of Parliament the truth is that the institution died decades ago.

The greatest threat of Nigel Farage’s premiership will come in the first one hundred days when things start to go wrong and the policies which were promised are difficult to implement. If he wants his Government to survive he will need to appoint a team which is both meritocratic and with enough technical quality to reassure exigent Forces such as the Markets. Reform could actually be a much more technocratic party than Labour or the Tories if they pursue this course of action.

In the interim, he should continue to cut the flowers which dare to rise above. For every rose has its thorn.