Amongst yesterday’s outpourings about what a moron at Glastonbury yelled at other morons at Glastonbury, sat an announcement from Ben Habib on X that he was launching his new political party, Advance. Despite not liking the name much, I am now member 00871. If only I had got in earlier, I could have had an 007-- membership number. Shucks.
A little later The Lotus Eaters devoted one of their sessions to the new party and, in my opinion, missed the point by saying that Advance had no policies, but had a lot to say about being a democratic, run bottom to top, organisation. This will include an elected College with the power to select and deselect the leadership of the party. Which suggests to me that Ben Habib is doing this the right way round. Get in members and offer them a blank canvas so that they can write the policies we, the people want, not those that a bunch of politicians with vested interests want us to have. That is even before we consider that Ben Habib is also chair of GB-PAC where many great minds have been churning out largely excellent policy suggestions for some time. How convenient was that?
Like many others of the new membership, I ticked the box asking for help. I just hope that for once this was not a wasted tick.
Many of the disaffected and rejected ex-members of Reform were on the Branch committees where it was possible to see the damage that Farage and Yusuf were doing to the party. We are all experienced campaigners, can use NationBuilder with all its quirks, know other people and can make this party grow. So, for the sake of this country, please Ben, use us.
Finally, there is a lot about Advance splitting the right-wing vote. That implies there is a choice of right-wing parties when there isn’t. Reform is gradually sliding into the left-wing dominated Lab-Con Uniparty and UKIP is still, well, UKIP.
That does not mean there isn’t a massive amount to do before the next election, but this time last year people were still asking ‘What’s Reform?’. It may be difficult persuading those that think ‘It’s Reform for me all day long’ is succinct political comment, but it can be done.
I tried to make a post about this, and it might show up later, but I’m worried that this is all a damp squib. The launch seemed lacklustre; the Integrity Party (IMO a better name) didn’t talk about it for hours, and their website was still up, taking memberships. It isn’t clear whether Integrity members have rolled into Advance members or not… I actually had to check that Ben’s accounts had not been hacked, the launch seemed so weird. I only believed it when I saw that Integrity had changed its name with Companies House.
I also worry about Lowe and his new platform. Did Ben and Rupert talk first and know that they were launching on the same day? If not, why not? And if they did, that seems even worse. They don’t have to work together (but dear God, I wish they would), but I want them to at least not be stepping on each other’s toes.
With all of that said, I don’t know what Lowe’s new thing is meant to be… Seems like a paid form of this platform? The advertising is very much not clear about what you are getting for your £20 there.
I will say, I want (and hope) that we can come up with some form of right-wing electoral pact or umbrella party. If we can’t get UKIP, Homeland, Advance, whatever the other ones are, to unite entirely, we should get them to do something like Labour Co-op, where each of these parties is a wing of the true right party. I get standing up for what you believe in, and I’m not arguing we should all back Nigel (we shouldn’t), but if we can all back something and sort out the squabbles later, that would be ideal.
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I suspect, and hope ‘Restore Britain’ might be intended to be an umbrella, which, in time, could contain the parties mentioned, including Advance UK, and dare I say it, some aspect of the Conservative Party.
Rupert Lowe has the credibility and the personality (it seems) to carry out a unification function, and he is a well known MP. The Conservatives take him seriously, Reform clearly do, and Rupert has a nascent presence in US circles, chiefly through Elon. There is potential here. Specifically from the States - in terms of media.
I believe it is a smart move for Restore Britain to be a ‘movement’ at this time, and to openly state that any member of any party can join. I also understand why Ben Habib would enter the fray with a party in this context. Ben clearly represents an ideologically aligned segment constituency, that could serve a fundamental role in a unified political force, especially with Ben’s statements on the importance of the Advance UK college being an intellectual backbone.
I really do hope there is a plan in place, and what we are seeing is just the first chess pieces being moved. I suspect that might be the case. These are clearly intelligent and committed people, with what appears to be an honest and true aim.
Image a unified future, where all of these parties, these constituencies, with aligned ideological direction, have the opportunity to mobilise their collective infrastructure and resources, picking the best from each party and picking which one of their brands they want to fight the 2029 GE under. It could be as Homeland, Advance, even Conservative. We can hope.
It’s somewhat surprising that, if reporting is true, Habib only got 5,000 members yesterday, but Lowe got 50,000. Maybe it’s the difference between being a party in waiting and a policy platform, or maybe it is the credibility that Lowe has(?)
I might join Habib’s party, I like him a lot and think that he is genuinely trying to do well and not make a cult of personality around him, I just wish that yesterday’s launch had inspired much more confidence in me than it did. I’m certainly no Social media expert, try to avoid it really, but I can’t help but feel like it could’ve been planned better.
I do think it was a less than ideal launch for Advance UK, making me wonder if Ben’s hand was forced due to Rupert Lowe announcing Restore Britain. 5000 members on such a launch is (in my opinion) a spectacular result. However I believe the 50,000 figure for RB is actually follower count on X, rather than members (I could be wrong).
We have excellent people in various parties, and outside of parties - what would be great is if we all had a common link, a mechanism to come together, or at least collude. Hopefully RB does that.
Which I don’t get, but at least according to Charlie Downes, Ben was made aware of Restore and decided to launch on the same day. Obviously, we can question the veracity of that statement, but it seems like it might be true.
Also, yes, you are correct about the numbers. My mistake.
