Tuesday 21 May 2024

Some thoughts on the Reform Party UK’s “Contract with You” – Draft 2

The Reform Party UK has recently issued a new version of its “Contract with You.” In essence, this is the second draft of the party’s manifesto for the upcoming general election.

Back in March, I provided the party with 14 pages of comments on the first version of the Contract. Two weeks ago, I received an e-mail from them, saying: “We would like to thank you again for the time you have taken to contact us with your suggestions, thoughts and personal stories. We are very grateful for your input which has been a huge help to us and many of your suggestions are being incorporated into the final Contract.” I will say that I did feel extremely flattered by this!

The new version of the Contract is now available. It is here: [[1]].

You can see how closely the party have listened to me, by the fact that my first new comment doesn’t come until page 5. “Pick up Migrants out of Boats and Take Back to France.” Yes, exactly. The way it should have been done in the first place.

Page 5. I’m not sure about the “Illegal Working Scandal,” but anything that gives British workers a better chance to find jobs suitable for them has got to be a bonus.

Page 7. “Excess Deaths and Vaccine Harms Public Inquiry.” Yes, absolutely necessary, if it can be brought off without becoming compromised. This should also cover the dishonest re-definition of the excess deaths calculation by the ONS. On which, I have written here: [[2]].

I would also like to refer you to the recent parliamentary debate on the matter, convened by Andrew Bridgen MP: [[3]]. (By the way, this debate is a fascinating read, if a long one. And it includes sharp thoughts, from some of the very best MPs in the whole chamber, on the COVID inquiry processes, which do seem to have become compromised. And a minister who, though she may understand medicine, either does not understand statistics, or is talking from a script.)

Page 8. Might be worth noting that “Net Zero,” and everything that follows from it, are being very strongly pushed by the United Nations via its “sustainable development” agenda. The UN is an international body, that has no place interfering in the affairs of a democracy.

By the way, my views on the UN and its sustainable development goals are here: [[4]]. I would also like to re-state for you or other interested parties the following references to my essays, which I gave you in my earlier set of Contract comments: [[5]], [[6]]. One on the non-existence of a climate crisis, the other on the (deliberate) non-existence of any cost-benefit analysis for nett zero. The latter issue, so I hear, has recently been taken up by Andrea Jenkyns MP: [[7]].

Page 9. Not all my earlier concerns on policing have been addressed, but this is moving in the right direction. But see later on what I have to say about “road safety.”

Page 10. “Scrap or reform Police and Crime Commissioners.” Yes. The recently re-elected Tory PCC at Surrey County Council is an activist with designs against our basic freedoms.

Page 16. “Leave the European Convention on Human Rights.” I would say that leaving the European Court has become an essential, given its recent idiot decision in the Swiss seniors case. And again, an international court has no place interfering with a democracy. But there still needs to be a human rights framework for people to hang on to. Otherwise, I can’t disagree with much here.

(Ah, I see a “British Bill of Rights” on page 27. But I think it needs to be introduced here).

Page 21. “Stop the War on Motorists.” I find it a pity that this section has not been significantly expanded. Since I made the previous round of comments in March, I have researched and written a new set of essays about the anti-car policies we are currently being subjected to. The final “summary and diagnosis” essay is here: [[8]]. There is a lot in it. Please read the “To sum up” section near the end for a brief summary of what is going on. It isn’t nice reading. The discovery that the UK government committee COMEAP seems to have been suborned by the influence of the UN’s WHO was a very significant one for me.

A new front (new to me, at least) has recently been opened locally in the war on motorists by Surrey County Council. I covered this in the fifth of the anti-car policy essays, here: [[9]]. Surrey is a member of UK 100, a group of zealot councils on net zero. Its “road safety” initiatives, in common with the issues over “air pollution” and “clean air,” are being driven by the WHO. Again, an international organization that has no right to any say in the affairs of a democracy. And whose influence, both on COVID and in the “air pollution” area, has been highly malign. Jeremy Hunt, by the way, is all in on the “road safety” stuff.

I found these policies “really just a combination of money-grab and destruction of freedoms.” They are a control-freak’s wet dream. Oh, and Surrey police are in on it too. Police sitting in lay-bys with cameras to catch out as many drivers as possible going over some limit that wasn’t even there a few years ago, is hardly going to fix the problem that “crime solving is at an all-time low.” Surely, this isn’t what you meant by “zero tolerance policing?”

All this opens up a brand-new can of worms: how could a Reform national government, with a mandate from the people to go in one direction, overrule local governments that want to go in an entirely different direction? This is exactly what Mark Harper ought to have done, and so signally failed to do, over the ULEZ expansion.

Page 23. “Buy British. Buy quality.” Yes, the food security issue is a really important one.

Page 27. “The social contract is broken.” Spot on. If, indeed, it ever existed. Over decades, successive governments have failed to deliver their part of the bargain. That must change. Indeed, I think this point ought to be made right up front on the “Our Contract with You” page.

Page 27. “A British Bill of Rights.” Yes. Thank you. But it ought to be introduced significantly earlier than this, for example on page 16.

Page 28. “Cancel membership of the World Health Organisation.” Yes, absolutely. And reject all the policies it has been pushing. It’s worth also looking at the relationship with the UN as a whole. Is an eventual UNexit on the cards?

Oh, and as a final “bonus,” this recent essay [[10]] is not directly relevant to what a Reform party manifesto should or should not commit to doing. But I hope that, for those who can find the time to read almost 14,000 words, it may prove instructive and rewarding.




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