Sticks and stones

The BBC apologised to Reform UK for a written report that described that party as ‘far right.’ It seems that it could be libellous to use the phrase in this way. But listening to a BBC report last night, I heard journalist Orla Guerin describe some in Israel’s government as ‘far right’ or ‘hard right.’ It is thus a phrase which could be used in different contexts to mean different things and so lacks precise definition. Richard Tice, leader of Reform UK says that to describe his party as far right implicitly means that he personally would be tarred with the same brush, and he could therefore sue for libel. Richard, join the cancel culture! What are we to make of this? An article on Wikipedia suggests that being ‘far right’ suggests one possesses a nativist, nationalistic world view, and may identify with fascist or Nazi movements. I can see that the last bit could lead to a libel action, which is presumably why the BBC’s lawyers thought it wise Auntie should apologise. And Orla’s description of a far right tendency in the Israeli government should invoke a torrent of complaints from its apologists.
 
If ‘far right’ means neo-Nazi, then I doubt Reform UK fits the bill. Throwing around the insult ‘neo-Nazi’ does little to inform debate. It seems sufficient to suggest they are to the right of the Tory party, which is bad enough. Looking at the photograph of its members on the Reform UK website’s home page, where fully 95-98% of the members are middle aged (or older) white males, one has a sense that this is a Trumpian demographic—no wonder the Tories are so worried. That’s their membership. Delving into the policies it may come as a surprise to learn that they are not anti-immigration per se, merely illegal immigration. They claim they want an emigration/immigration balance, so that if 400,000 people leave the UK, then 400,000 immigrants could replace them (sounds a bit like the Great Replacement Theory doesn’t it?) This may come as a surprise to those who simply want a stop to all immigration. On raising money to pay for their spending pledges, Reform UK wants to stop the Bank of England paying interest on quantitive easing payments to banks. I’m not sure I understand this policy, although if it were a realistic proposition it sounds eminently worthy. On climate change, I wonder if Reform UK are being fed garbage from the Tufton Street mafia. Here, confusion about the science is encouraged, which is to say a single counter intuitive blip is sufficient to overthrow a whole, long-term trend. And some of the ‘facts’ they present are simply wrong. For example, confusing the surface extent of sea ice and the thickness of sea ice doesn’t mean that sea ice is increasing.
 
Perhaps we should accurately describe Reform UK as ‘Faragists.’ I know this sounds a bit like ‘Falangists’ but really! There’s no similarity.