Reform was meant to be the party you can trust on immigration. So what on earth is going on?
Quick quiz. During an interview with ITV News on Tuesday, which Labour Left-winger said the following words?
'Immigration is the lifeblood of this country. It always has been.'
Did you get it? Probably not, because it was a trick question. The person who made that impeccably progressive statement is not a Labour Left-winger. Or even a Labour centrist.
He is in fact Dr David Bull: none other than the brand new chairman of Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
Seriously. That's what he said. And then, during another interview later that day, Dr Bull said something just as extraordinary. 'We are,' he informed viewers of GB News, 'an island of immigrants'.
Well, yes, I suppose we are, in the year 2025, after three decades of ever-rocketing immigration. But his choice of words was still startling. Because 'We are an island of immigrants' is a phrase normally deployed by open-border liberals, with the aim of promoting the false but politically convenient notion that the mass immigration of recent years is entirely normal, and therefore you have no right to object to it. Essentially, the message is: what are you moaning about, you silly gammon? Boudica was born in Afghanistan! Chaucer came from Eritrea! Henry VIII spent £4 million a day on asylum hotels! This is simply the way things have always been, so shut up and be grateful!
In light of Dr Bull's comments, therefore, supporters of Reform are bound to be feeling a touch perplexed. Surely their party's chairman, of all people, should understand what Reform is meant to stand for. It's meant to offer a proper alternative to the Labour/Tory 'uniparty'. It's meant to reject smug metropolitan clichés about multiculturalism. And above all, it's meant to be the party you can trust on immigration. So what on earth is going on?
It's one thing for Reform to move Left on nationalisation and welfare. But quite another for it to move Left on this. These days, even Sir Keir Starmer is trying to talk tough on border control. Yet, all of a sudden, the chairman of Reform sounds as if he's auditioning for a slot on Alastair Campbell's podcast. What will he suggest next? Rejoining the EU? Gary Lineker for Home Secretary? Make Greta Thunberg our ambassador to Israel?
Still, at least one person on the Right is happy. Robert Jenrick, the former and no doubt future Tory leadership contender, seized on Dr Bull's words with glee. He clearly couldn't believe his luck.
'This is just nonsense,' he snorted. 'Not all immigration is equal. The unprecedented mass, unskilled migration we've experienced has been severely economically and culturally damaging... The idea that it is the 'lifeblood of our country', without which things would fall apart, couldn't be further from the truth.'
Until not all that long ago, of course, Mr Jenrick was a member of the government that blithely enabled this 'unprecedented mass, unskilled migration' to reach record heights (from a net figure of 252,000 in 2010 to 906,000 in 2023). Which is, very obviously, a major reason why so many voters have abandoned the Tories for Reform. They're sick of being lied to. They're tired of being patronised. And they can't understand why, every month, £1 billion of their taxes should be spent on immigrants' benefits.
As a result, they want drastic change. So when Reform promised a 'net zero' immigration policy – as in, one in, one out – these voters naturally thought that, at long last, here was a party they could believe in. A party that genuinely thought the same way they did.
Nigel Farage, therefore, had better reassure these voters that this is still the case. Contrary to what the BBC or The Guardian may imagine, Reform's prospects of winning power will not be damaged by soap opera nonsense: internal tiffs, or politically incorrect posts on social media, or ex-chairman Zia Yusuf flouncing out in a huff only to slink back in two minutes later. Nor will they be damaged by the news that Dr Bull once described Mr Farage as an 'idiot', all of 11 years ago.
There's only one thing that could halt Reform's surge. And that's the fear that, once safely ensconced in office, they'd be no different from the parties they'd usurped. Just the Tories, in a slightly lighter blue.
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