[mattomac]

This is why I find the situation rather interesting if not at the same time depressing. I did expect the traditional Tory press to find its way home at some point.

First bit of Reform faltering or maybe when Jenerick becomes leader.

[Bones McCoy]

There biggest issue is that there are seats they can still not effectively win. My major worry is Reform exist to take them. As they still won’t vote for a Tory in them (see Wales).

What intrigues me is if the Tories had less seats than them but was enough to form a majority would the great grand party of British politics play themselves as a junior party, knowing that Reform ideas are effectively dumb and remembering how it did for the Lib Dem’s.

I can't imagine the Tories ever accepting a junior role. Whenever they're in opposition they adopt a King Over the Water position, waiting for the country to come to its senses and welcome them back - natural party of government and all that . Serving under Reform would destroy their beliefs forever.

And I can't imagine Reform entering a merger as junior partner.
Let me qualify that a bit.

I don't imagine Farage would have any problem dumping his flagshaggers and taking his leadership group of five or six into a Tory alliance.
But that risks his big polling numbers - maybe he takes a "who else are they going to vote for?" approach.

Any alliance or merger is going to require a lot of subtle diplomacy.
Not a quality I associate with Badenoch, Jenrick, Farage or Tice.
Maybe the tories have a few "long game operators" stuck in their sock drawer (What's Gove doing now?)

I believe there's political mileage in a merger / alliance, but think there are a lot of egos and roadblocks to it occurring.

[Andy McDandy]

I said earlier that the big stumbling block for Reform will be finding enough candidates who can pass a background check, and can be relied on to not fuck up for an entire election campaign. Yes, there's a strong element of "We're voting for Nige!" when anyone puts their cross next to them, but if it comes to light that a candidate has a particularly odious rap sheet, or more skeletons in their closet than John Christie, that will put them on the defensive for a day or two, and may repel enough voters in that constituency.

Worst case scenario is a hung parliament with enough Tories/Unionists/Reform to make a majority. Fargle will take an opportunity to form a coalition of necessity*, half the Tories will be happy to swap blue for aquamarine, and any vaguely middling Tories would have been sidelined or ousted under Badenoch/Jenrick anyway.

Which brings me to local conservative parties and selection processes. I'm really hoping that the post-Brexit years, and Johnson's purge of 2019 haven't taken all the more moderate ones out of the system. Because whataboutery will only serve Reform. What we need is 4-6 weeks of Fargle defending domestic abusers and tax dodgers, and claiming his vetting system is both state of the art and just up and running. We need him petulant, whiny, and defensive. Then we need him gone.

*Done in a noble spirit of compromise, done to maintain a functioning government. As opposed to our side, who do grubby backroom deals to cling onto their ministerial perks by their fingertips.

[Abernathy]

We also need to keep reminding people that Farage helped the Tories to win the general election of 2019 by withdrawing all his UKIP candidates from Tory-held seats.

And of course, that he is culpable through his support for Brexit of rendering the UK’s economy £140billion smaller than it would be if we had remained a member of the EU.

[Boiler]

It was £120 billion the other day.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Candidates in the US generally mattered more than here, with split ticket voting in lots of states. Voters could get to know their candidates over primaries and localized campaigns. Sadly once Newt Gingrich got the hang of attacking every Blue Dog Democrat as though they were Trotsky, it became much less of a thing. Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester getting beaten badly was the last gasp of this other world.

The UK election is going to be be completely nationalized, every candidate will be the Farage candidate. A good election for Reform will be if no candidates get noticed. And even if they do, there are media outlets who'll pour a bunch of shit on the sane challengers in response.

[Tubby Isaacs]

As an aside, this election is worth checking out if you haven't heard of it before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Unit ... in_Georgia

Short version- Republican candidate who skipped Vietnam with a student deferment and a football injury attacked the incumbent Democrat as soft on security. Said incumbent Democrat had not only served in Vietnam, but lost both legs and one arm there.

The Republican romped home by 7 points.