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Thinking back to the pre-election assessments that I wrote out, I have watched the results of the election with interest, for the purpose of formulating the plan ahead. This assessment will be divided into two parts, the first being the overall result, and why, and the second being the performance of nationalist parties, and why.

 

The Labour Victory

The most obvious result is the overwhelming shift in terms of seats to Labour, with them having a comparable majority to that of Blair in 1997. This said, they actually lost votes overall in comparison to their previous iteration under Corbyn, effectively continuing a trend of the by-elections of 2024 that Labour wins despite losing support. The election result was ultimately decided by who lost the most votes rather than who gained, and given that a significant portion of the Conservative vote stayed at home or switched to voting for Reform UK, all Labour had to do to win, was to avoid making mistakes. Given the results of the last decade of Conservative policies, Labour could easily make an argument for themselves if they needed to.

 

Reform UK

Reform UK, in terms of its ideals and principles, is identical to the Conservative Party. There is less difference between Reform and the Conservatives, than there is between factions of the Conservatives and each other. As such, the ability of the Conservative voter and even MP to switch between the two parties remains high due to there being no real ideological barrier or change required. Reform has made noise about coming second in many seats, but in almost all these cases, it was taking second place from the Conservatives in seats which have, historically, been guaranteed wins for Labour. In other words, they might have taken second from the Conservatives, but even so they had no chance of winning anyway.

 

Farage proclaims that he is coming for Labour, but Reform has little to no ability to appeal to the disenfranchised Labour supporter, because fundamentally it IS a Tory party, and if a disenfranchised Labour voter wouldn’t vote Conservative, they won’t vote Reform either.

 

It will be interesting to observe the change now that Farage and Tice are actually MPs. I can foresee the issue coming up, of them getting bogged down dealing with a constituency, that their ability to actually manage the Party is crippled. I also think it is highly likely that within a year, at least one of the elected Reform UK MPs will defect to the Conservatives.

 

The fact that Reform UK polled more votes than the Liberal Democrats, yet returned 5 seats as opposed to 71 for the Lib Dems, does highlight issues with the First Past the Post System, BUT it also highlights issues with the way that Reform UK operates. The level of Party infrastructure and resource is disproportionately low to the number of seats it ran in, thus leaving most candidates with very little in the way of resources or concentrated ability to carry out branch activity. This makes it very hard to concentrate or mobilise any large numbers in any single constituency. It highlights the limitations of a Party that runs only on the work of half a dozen people, and which does not empower junior officers or branch leaders to mobilise people of their own accord.

 

Turnout

The final turnout figure that I have seen is 59.5%, effectively comparable to that of the 2001 election. I did speculate that it would likely be the lowest ever – it wasn’t, but it was virtually tied for the position. It illustrates a point that has been made by me and others throughout the year, which is that the single largest voting block – the non-voters – will not vote now except for something which is radically different enough to the existing options so as to be worth the effort of voting for. Parties like Reform UK certainly aren’t in that category.

 

 

The Nationalist Movement

In short, the results were terrible. And none of it was the candidates' fault, because in most if not all cases the candidates themselves were good people who put themselves on the line. The results were terrible because of the utterly dreadful (in some cases non-existent) leadership and decision-making within the sphere of the legacy nationalist movement.

 

The candidates from all of the nationalist parties failed horrifically because they were set up to fail by leaders who either didn't think or just didn't care.

 

There have been candidates being forced to run on contradictory manifestos. Leaders of nationalist parties who didn't just endorse OTHER parties, but even VOTED for other parties on polling day. Activists who somehow ignored parties they were in actual alliances with to go and leaflet for other parties that have openly slated them. The absolute lack of any coherent strategy. The promotion of the idea that somehow being a parish councillor is going to 'legitimise' you as a parliamentary candidate, when in reality, nobody will care. Candidates being given a box of leaflets and one or two activists and expected to somehow communicate their existence and policies to a constituency of 75,000 people. Leaders encouraging people to run in the election whilst simultaneously proclaiming that there is no political solution.

 

The litany is endless.

 

What these elections, just like the local elections, have shown me, is that the organisations and leadership of the legacy nationalist movement are beyond help. People cannot be helped who will not help themselves.

 

The fact that the results for nationalist candidates were awful is NOT the issue, because everyone has to start somewhere. But what IS the issue is that all the evidence shows resolutely that the legacy nationalist parties and the people leading them have no capability to ever improve those results.

 

The solution to this problem is this:

 

1) Candidates need to be supported, within the constituency, by at least 1-200 people who can regularly engage in activity. Labour get this through the unions. The Conservatives get this through local associations. In order for candidates to have this level of resource, the focus of the Party needs to be to build this branch infrastructure, NOT to just get candidates running and cobble together a few people that live 150 miles away to leaflet once every month.

 

2) There must be no tolerance for any level of weakness, cowardice, greed or contradictory behaviour by the leadership.

The events of yesterday have proven to me, beyond all doubt, that walking away from that legacy of failure, ignorance and arrogance in equal measure, in order to form the National Rebirth Party, was the best possible decision that I could have made, not just for me, but for the entire movement.

 

Conclusion

The results of the General Election, and the performance of the nationalist parties in particular, proves the necessity of engaging in the five-year plan of the National Rebirth Party. We have seen now, resolutely, what the old legacy of nationalism can do and can't do, and are now in a position where the political leadership of the nation will work to sabotage the future of our country even further. It cannot be confronted with weakness and failure.

 

This time to redouble our efforts, is now.

 

By Alek Yerbury

 

Party Leader