All political parties struggle to infuse local elections with significance, as no party can alter the consequences of nearly two decades of austerity. They can promise to work hard for local people, and many will, but they cannot change the mathematics of inadequate funding and soaring social care costs. All they can do is hope to exist in an affluent enough area.
Instead, the results are treated as a popularity contest, which – if things go your way – will hopefully supply enough buoyancy to last into a general election, and, if they do not, will hopefully evaporate. In other words, these are ideal conditions for party leaders to say ridiculous things, but there is no caveat for the unbridled nastiness that emerged from Reform UK over the weekend.
Reform's New Policy: Detention Centres for Migrants
Reform UK promises to deport thousands of illegal immigrants (no change there) via locked detention centres (some change there, in the direction of 'warehouseification', borrowed from Donald Trump). The kicker is that these detention centres will never be situated in areas that voted Reform, but will instead be placed in Green-leaning boroughs. Zia Yusuf, Reform's spokesperson for home affairs, unveiled the policy with a handy tactical mapper, votegreengetillegals.com, where you can enter your postcode and see how likely your area is to vote Green and thus get a detention centre. It is basically London, Brighton, Bristol and the Cotswolds, hosting as many thousands of migrants as this hypothetical Reform government can sweep up – so good luck with the real estate, guys.
Who Is This Policy For?
As psephologists search for the antonym of 'pork-barrel politics' (perhaps 'grotesque parody of politics'), it is interesting to consider who this policy is for. It definitely will not deter Green voters, for whom the fear will not be a detention centre on their doorstep, but the existence of such centres and the likely poor conditions within them, from a party that cannot organise a hanging basket. The broader vindictiveness of Reform as a force in politics will create a fresh determination to vanquish it. It is optimistic and a bit early-21st century of Farage's party to assume that the Greens only command support in limited, metropolitan elite areas, and therefore galvanising them is risk-free. But do not interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.
If the announcement has an effect on the Labour party, it is more likely to go Reform's way. On the form of the past two years, Labour will be scrambling to meet voters' legitimate concerns regarding giant warehouses full of humans, drawing up plans for detention centres of its own, with elaborate PFI funding structures, fairly distributed between all the counties, so long as they are the cheapest. If this can spur the kind of craven copycat far-right mimicry for which Labour is now fabled, there is a chance that it will obliterate its activist base altogether.
The True Message to Reform's Own Voters
The true message is to Reform's own voters, however. Pointless, you might think. Why would they mind where the detention centres are, so long as they get built? If they spring up in Reform-voting areas, all the more convenient for a spontaneous protest. But the practicals are secondary. We are not watching a blueprint for the actual detention of real-life people, but rather a 'libidinal assemblage', the summoning of strong emotions – vitriol, competition, resentment – that can then be used to shape behaviour. I had only ever heard of libidinal assemblage on podcasts about fascism, rather than from its source philosophers (Deleuze and Guattari), and I thought, 'Huh, that is interesting. I wonder what it actually looks like?', but it was already all around – a relentless fixation on migrants, how they should never belong, never relax, never consider themselves safe from the threat of deportation.
What is it all for? How does it create prosperity, unity, optimism? It does not, because it is not supposed to. It is there for that little spurt of atavistic rage that will make you do a dumb thing, such as vote for the interests of capital, masquerading as the voice of the common man. The nastiness is the product, not the by-product.
