Third day of a new year and already it’s time to get the popcorn out. The infighting between Reform UK Ltd and the Conservatives is mirroring what’s happening in America, where MAGA enthusiasts are just waking up to the prospect that Donald Trump might not be the American saviour they thought he’d be.
How this will unfold over the coming months is difficult to predict, but one thing’s for sure, divided parties rarely succeed. And those who peddle untruths may have their moment in the sun but inevitably, as night follows day, they get found out.
Trump and the H-1B skilled worker visa
What’s happening in America is instructive for how politics ‘may’ play out in this country, not least because Nigel Farage and some senior Tories have nailed their colours so clearly to Trump’s mast.
Trump’s inauguration is not until 20 January, but divisions are already opening up over immigration and national security. Driving this is the issue of the H-1B skilled migrant worker programme. This has seen Trump loyalists pitted against his big business backers, who support and advocate for H-1B visas to bring in specialist employees.
As Newsweek explains, the H-1B visa is a non-immigrant work visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. Elon Musk and biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy both support the use of the H-1B, with Tesla (one of Musk’s companies) employing more than 1,700 people via this route. They have both been urging President-elect Trump to bring in more foreign tech workers.
In response, Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House strategist, warned Musk that he and other MAGA diehards would “rip [his] face off”, accusing Musk and other tech leaders of cutting Americans out of jobs.
Musk and Trump may share similar psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies, but they have very different agendas. Musk is now dipping his nasty toe into European politics, selecting more and more divisive right-wing trigger points on religion and immigration to pursue his agenda.
Just what that agenda is, is unclear. But what is clear, is that with the money Musk has access to, he increasingly needs Trump less than Trump needs him. And being a disruptor is probably an end point in itself for Musk.
Reform UK Ltd vs the Tories
Similarly, this year the right in the UK will see cracks appear that were not so evident in 2024. Small boats will continue to dominate the news, because it’s the hill that Farage has decided to die on. Just as MAGA and Trump have dragged the Republican Party into something more akin to a far-right cult, Farage and Reform UK Ltd are having a similar effect on the Tories as they scrabble to occupy the same ground.
Just listen to the former Conservative home secretary Suella Braverman on LBC on Thursday, as she talked of the “land border” between Italy and Türkiye. In a desperate bid to talk borders and immigration she literally redrew the map of Europe. Proof not only that the Tories are a gift that keeps on giving to Labour, but that private education is not all it’s cracked up to be.
The wheels will increasingly come off the Tory bus – a party that is already finding itself in a bad place this year (and we’re only three days in). The normally sycophantic Tory-loving Express has issued dire warnings to the party claiming “The Tory Party is currently a walking corpse” and one increasingly short on cash.
Tory infighting
Is Farage an existential threat to the Conservatives? In the absence of any policies, he’s setting the agenda for the Tories and they’re mishandling it spectacularly. What goes around comes around.
In its wisdom, the party decided to get rid of any sensible, one nation MPs, and is left with, basically, a bunch of zealots and ideologues. None more so than their leader Kemi Badenoch, who recently made the tactical error of an unnecessary spat with Reform UK Ltd over membership numbers. As the Guardian said “Arguing the toss with a man whose greatest joy in life is winding up Tories probably wasn’t the right seasonal strategy for Badenoch”.
According to The London Economic, supporters of former leadership rival Robert Jenrick now have a new party forum called ‘Blue Monday’, which must be winding up Team Badenoch. One senior organiser is now labelling it an “anti-Kemi alliance waiting to stir up some more drama”.
That’s exactly what the Tories need right now, another leadership challenge.
Disruptors don’t make politicians
Nick Candy, the treasurer of Reform UK Ltd, sniffing big bucks from Musk has promised “political disruption like we have never seen before” according to the Guardian. For his part Musk has upped his dabbling in UK affairs, taking to X to promote Reform, calling for Tommy Robinson to be released from jail and for an immediate general election in the UK.
Musk and Farage are the masters of disinformation and disruptors par excellence. But therein lies their problem. Farage wants to be at the centre of power whilst at the same time loving being the sniper on the sidelines. Musk just wants to disrupt. The only things uniting them are their outsized egos, a so-called ‘anti-establishment’ view, and an ability to tap into people’s fear and prejudice.
Hate just breeds more hate. Lies and disinformation create toxic noise and static, making it hard for people to discern what is really true. Let the haters, the naysayers and the one-trick immigration ponies fight it out. They need to be sidelined as the government gets on with governing – sorting out the NHS, the economy, schools, and potholes.
The right-wing anti-immigration playbook is starting to backfire in America already. How it plays out now in the UK will depend on how much influence Farage allows Musk to have. But sure as night is day, Musk will have his own agenda and, as we are beginning to see across the pond, that may well differ from Farage’s and the majority of Reform UK Ltd supporters’ interests. Time for the popcorn.
