Monday, February 16, 2026

The ‘revolting’ but right pitted against the ‘romantic’ but wrong

From Reform vs the Greens captures the real divide in politics by Patrick West.  The subheading is In Gorton and Denton, we see the ‘revolting’ but right pitted against the ‘romantic’ but wrong.


For the first time anyone can remember, in a contest for a Westminster seat in an English city, the two parties vying for power won’t be Labour or the Conservatives, but instead be two insurgent outsiders. This is a twin-pronged revolt against the political mainstream – against a clique that has become ever more detached and tin-eared since the advent of globalisation in the 1990s.

The concerns articulated by both outfits, Reform UK and the Green Party, mirror those seen in all developed countries around the globe. In Reform, we have a party that appeals to small-c conservatives and a disaffected working class who inhabit deindustrialised areas, who feel their homeland has been degraded by an aloof, footloose liberal-left who cares little for them or their country. In the Greens, we have a party that has enjoyed a surge in popularity by taking a sharp turn to the left, appealing to a graduate class for whom the ‘elites’ are instead neoliberal capitalists, who must be humbled through punitive tax hikes. The Greens have remained steadfast passengers on the woke bandwagon, still proud to fly the Progress Pride flag, while simultaneously making gainful overtures to Muslim voters. Time will tell how well that interesting marriage works out.

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