Reform – The Party That Needs Britain Broken

I’ve been following the fallout from the Caerphilly by-election, and something struck me like a bad smell in the wind. Everyone’s talking about Plaid Cymru’s “historic win”, but few are admitting the tactical truth – it wasn’t so much a surge for Plaid as a manoeuvre against Reform.

Plaid’s victory was the electorate’s emergency brake. Reform were closing fast, feeding off Labour’s decay and the stench of political exhaustion. Plaid became the acceptable protest – a way for people to say enough without giving Farage the keys. It worked, but only temporarily.

Because Plaid can’t deliver the change voters are desperate for. Not from lack of integrity, but from lack of power. Caerphilly’s problems – collapsing public services, stagnant wages, a hollowed-out high street – are structural. They can’t be fixed without real money, and real money means higher taxes. The voters just demanded transformation without payment, and that’s a trick no politician can pull off.

So when nothing visibly changes, who do you think will come striding back with that smug grin and another slogan about “betrayal”? Reform. They’ll point at Plaid, sneer “no better than the rest,” and the same angry voters will look right again – this time not tactically, but permanently.

Reform can’t run a bath, let alone a country. Their manifesto is fantasy economics: £80 billion in unfunded tax cuts, mass deportations that would require an army of charter planes, and “drill baby drill” nonsense in a North Sea that’s almost tapped out. But their followers don’t care – the rage is the point. It’s emotional theatre dressed up as policy.

Farage and his gang have turned grievance into an industry. GB News, TalkTV, social media echo chambers – all feeding the outrage machine that keeps them relevant and funded. They’re not trying to fix Britain; they’re strip-mining it for resentment. If things ever improved, they’d lose their market.

So yes, Caerphilly’s vote for Plaid was a tactical firewall – the last attempt to block the advance of political nihilism. But if Plaid can’t show visible progress, the wall will crumble, and through the gap will march the pyromaniacs of Reform, petrol cans in hand, calling themselves saviours while the rest of us choke on the smoke.