Rotten to the core? Reform demonstrate why party discipline is important

Given that Daniel wrote so eloquently about the clips we had already seen on Friday, I wasn’t planning to write about ITV’s documentary Undercover: A year in Reform this morning. But having gone to bed feeling physically sick and woken up still thinking about it, I couldn’t stop myself.

Daniel wrote about the racism and misogyny which over the course of the documentary was absolutely relentless. Reform canvassers and councillors from across the country expressed views that would not be out of place in the BNP. Any illusion of so-called hygiene that Farage’s party had previously tried to project by attempting to distance themselves from vile characters like Stephen Yaxley Lennon (as Tommy Robinson will be properly called in court as he faces charges of harassing journalists) is shattered.

What struck me was the way that this shattering was easy because this facade was so very thin and so very fake. And this is because there has not been any real attempt to actually deal with the problem – only to gloss over it. No attempt to actually deal with the disgusting views held by these candidates and elected officials – just advice on how to better conceal them. There was a covert understanding that there is a gulf between what Reform will tell you they want to do in office (which is often terrible enough) and what their elected officials actually want to do with power.

READ MORE: Reform’s rotten culture is exposed

What became clear last night was not just what we had long known – that plenty of Reform people hold deeply objectionable attitudes – but that the party is exercised not in rooting this out, but in covering it up. We saw those advising potential candidates not that they might be unsuitable representatives for the party, but on how to hide their views. We saw their press teams talking not about how the party would deal with these candidates and councillors, but how they could best minimise the stories. Reform’s response to their ‘few bad apples’? To loosen their vetting rules so more of them could be selected.

Reform’s bad year continues. But they do have £72 million to spend on getting this right. Will they? From everything we saw last night, it is hard to believe they will spend much time, money or effort on actually changing the party – but much on trying to tell us they are not who we have seen them to be. This is not a party that genuinely wants to change. It is a party that wants to present a different face publicly than the one they show each other when in private.

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Political parties need to be able to present a coherent, united and honest front for voters to understand what they are voting for. That cannot be two-faced. That cannot be done with a leader who will tell the TV cameras that he is prioritising internal discipline to rid the party of bigots while overseeing an attitude that was at best relaxed about racism and at worst exceptionally permissive.

Party discipline is always fraught with complications. I have written often about the overuse and sometimes misuse of party discipline in the Labour Party. The abuse of the rulebook by all factions when they come to be in charge has long been a problem. In many ways it is the natural outcome of a broad church party. We all agree enough to join the same party, but then spend much of our lives fighting each other about what our policies should be, who should be selected to represent us, what our internal rules should be and who should enforce them.

I don’t resile from this criticism, but God, am I glad that we do have rules and guardrails. Party democracy is vital, but so too is party management. And it is because I believe this so strongly that I have so frequently argued that it is essential to get it right and make it as resistant to factional interference as possible.

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