Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series exploring the extraordinary ascent of a growing power in British politics: the Rise of Reform.

• Nigel Farage is supremely effective. But he’s not done yet
• Prime minister Farage would probably make you worse off – and this is why
• Three writers reveal why they turned to Reform
• Without Farage, Reform would collapse like a sandcastle

It’s weird, to say the least, so weird in fact that most of us are reluctant to examine the thing as closely as it deserves. Five years ago, Reform UK did not exist. Now the party has been topping the opinion polls, often by large margins, for months on end, ever since this time last year, though even after the latest defections it still has only eight MPs.

Yet curiosity remains muted about what exactly the party stands for, even among those millions who say they might vote for it. Reform’s critics tend to write it off as simply a “f**k-you party”, a none-of-the-above refuge for the disgruntled. Some like to see it as a passing fad, and point back to the brief blaze of glory enjoyed by the SDP in the early 1980s, but that was a breakaway from the Labour Party led by Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and other high-profile defectors. We knew exactly what sort of social democracy they stood for. Reform UK is much more of an unknown quantity.

Or is it? At the general election, Nigel Farage issued a 28-page manifesto, Our Contract With You, drenched in the party’s signature teal colour (actually the feathers on the teal duck are darker and greener; this is really cyan, or even turquoise). Quite a few of the pages are taken up with photos of Nigel chortling or (less convincingly) looking grave and statesmanlike, but there is enough policy in there to chew on.

I shall breeze through the document in a sort of rap or riff, in the hope of conveying its frenzied vibes. This is how it starts: Record mass immigration has damaged our country. The small boats crisis threatens our security. Multiculturalism has imported separate communities that reject our way of life.

So under a Reform UK government: All non-essential immigration to be frozen… Illegal immigrants who come to the UK will be detained and deported… New Department of Immigration… Pick up illegal immigrants out of boats and take them back to France…

Then there are a few routine paragraphs about cutting taxes and hospital waiting lists, the sort of airy pledges you find in any party’s manifesto, and most of which Farage junked in early November in an effort to appear fiscally responsible.

Then we get back to the serious stuff: A patriotic curriculum for primary and secondary schools… cut funding to universities that undermine free speech… Take advantage of Brexit opportunities… scrap remaining EU laws… Scrap EU co-operation on defence… Leave the ECHR… British Bill of Rights… Reaffirm British sovereignty… Reject World Economic Forum… Cancel World Health Organisation…Scrap the BBC licence…

The single-minded intensity of the document is remarkable. Its core message is that mass immigration is far and away the most serious crisis facing the UK and immigrants who fall foul of the rules must be treated mercilessly.

In tandem with the deportations, the UK is to become an increasingly isolationist nation, hostile to all international treaties and foreign entanglements. A Reform government would turn its back on the world, just as decisively as Farage and his fellow Brexit MEPs turned their backs on the European Parliament in July 2019 when the European Anthem was being played (Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” with its shocking message about all men being brothers). Britishness is the thing, the only thing.

As strong as it may........

© iNews