My address to the troops before July 4th

Neil’s Note: I sent an e-mail out to my Reform Party volunteers a few hours ago, and later I realized this document might be worth preserving. Whatever happens tomorrow.

For the avoidance of doubt: “Graham” is our candidate, “Doug” is the supporter whose e-mail prompted me to write this.

Hi all,

I am taking this opportunity to issue some final thoughts, as campaign manager, to our volunteers’ group about tomorrow.

Doug is absolutely right about the Tories’ assumption that their only “opposition” to a government has to be in parliament. That assumption is totally wrong.

And yes, the movement which we need to build will be far wider than just Reform UK. I think of Reform as the political wing of the new movement. Together (togetherdeclaration.org) looks to be in pole position to be our civil liberties wing. The TaxPayers’ Alliance is already moving in the direction of making themselves into an “unofficial opposition” on taxes and economic matters. There is a need for a fourth wing, too, which I think of as an ethical and ideas wing – getting out to people ideas of what government ought to be doing and how it ought to behave, so they can compare it with what it actually is doing and how it actually is behaving. There may even be more.

But the major problem we have is that to do all this will need money. It will need people, eventually many people, working full-time, and they have to be paid. To get money, we need to attract more supporters who have financial resources, and enough belief in what we want to do to use those resources to help us do it.

This time round, we have been doing everything with unpaid volunteers. I’m amazed by how much we’ve done with almost zero resources! And thank you all for your huge contributions to that effort. Many of you have gone way beyond any reasonable “call of duty.”

In contrast, the Lib Dems have been sending out multiple waves of leaflets by post. And Jeremy Hunt, I’ve heard, has spent £100K of his own money on publicity in the last phase of the campaign. I have had another letter, claiming to be from a “Sue W” in Milford, that appears to be a last ditch effort to activate the “Jeremy factor.” It isn’t as bad as the CCHQ one, and I don’t propose to spend time (even after the election) on taking it apart. But it does have about it an air of desperation.

I have not applied any “science” to this, it is only an educated guess, but I reckon we have about a 50 per cent chance of taking away enough votes from Hunt to let the Lib Dem through. That I regard as our “bronze medal.” The silver medal would be to reflect the national polling figures, and push Hunt down to third place. That would drive a nail labelled “Godalming and Ash” hard into the Tories’ coffin. The gold medal, of getting Graham in parliament, is a really outside chance; I’d guess it’s about the same chance as Foinavon winning the 1967 Grand National. (But it happened!)

Bear in mind, though, that a lot of our potential support is not visible to the pollsters, because they would refuse to take part in any poll. They are people the same position as I was before the Brexit party was formed. Totally pissed off with politics and all the mainstream parties, they have only two choices: vote for us, or don’t vote at all. Tomorrow will be the first time I have voted in a general election since 1987!

For those (unfortunately, few) of us who will be doing “teller duty” tomorrow, please read the “TelIers Guidance” PDF Graham sent out yesterday. I am advised that the most productive times are likely to be 8-10am and 5-9pm. I’d guess there might be a slightly busier period around lunch time, too. This is my own opinion only, but I see our tellers’ objective on this occasion as being to make clear to people coming in to the polling station that we exist, and have a candidate in this election. If I am engaged in a polite conversation by those coming in or out, I’ll respond, but I don’t plan to initiate any conversations or demand any information. Oh, and I’ll take a chair with me.

I think that’s about all I need to say today. So enjoy tomorrow, and let’s hope that, at the very least, tomorrow will be Jeremy Hunt’s last day in politics.

Cheers, Neil