Why Sarah Pochin’s racist comments show Reform are not fit to govern

That racially defined view, however, is one expressed openly by the Reform party’s most recently elected Member of Parliament, Sarah Pochin. Her racist comments this week – and the refusal of Nigel Farage to act upon them – surely show beyond all reasonable doubt that Reform are not fit to lead this country.

This must be a watershed moment – a point at which we are unequivocal about what can and cannot be accepted in our political life. We need to be able to call this what it is. Call me politically correct or “woke” if you will, but if “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people” cannot be defined as a racist statement, where else would you draw the line?

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Racism still unacceptable in mainstream politics

We do not need to condemn all Reform voters or all Reform politicians as racist because of Pochin’s comments. We do not even have to call Pochin herself “a racist” in some definitive, absolute sense.

But we do have to be able to say, unflinchingly, that her statement itself was unambiguously racist. We don’t need to know the content of her heart to be able to judge the fact of her actions, and respond accordingly by rejecting this brand of politics.

The good news is that racism is, in fact, still clearly outside the mainstream of our society. This is a barrier that we have built up as a country over many years, and with the support of parties across the political spectrum.

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Even better, we have up-to-the-minute evidence that far-right attempts to legitimise prejudice can be beaten – if we take up that fight. Just last week I wrote about the rightward-drifting Conservative party’s embrace of a mass deportation plan more extensive than that of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

This week, following a growing drumbeat of criticism and confusion – in which it emerged that the ever-on-the-detail Kemi Badenoch was not aware of her own party’s bill lodged earlier this year – the Tories U-turned and abandoned their policy.

Robust pushback really matters

The bad news is that norms are changeable. Those who wish to undermine basic principles of equality, pluralism and openness have never disappeared. They will re-emerge, given half a chance.

Openly racist sentiments and statements cannot be permitted in mainstream politics. Pochin’s statement, deliberate or not, risks breaking down that barrier and allowing racism back into that mainstream. This is why robust pushback from all corners of society really matters. We cannot afford to allow these norms against racism to collapse.

We must make it clear to Farage and Reform – and those who seem to be content to follow their lead – that there is no path to political success if they tolerate open racism.

The indications so far are that Farage is quite prepared to tolerate it, having dismissed Pochin’s statement as “ugly” but not racist. That is perhaps no great surprise from someone who once said that “any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door”.

That is why this moment should be a reminder, too, of the fundamental disqualification of Reform as a party of government. On some of the most important challenges our country faces, they are a party in search of problems to exploit – and where no problem exists, they seek to create them.

Manufactured grievance

Lest it be forgot, this is the organisation formerly known as the Brexit party, which now campaigns on a “small boat crisis”, which was created wholesale by Brexit. When that party’s flagship political project – founded upon grievance – has demonstrably made our country smaller, poorer and more divided, we should see their other campaigns of division as part of that self-same pattern.

The far-right follows a process of manufacturing grievance in order to exploit it. But Pochin’s statement blurred the line between something sinister and self-parody – it was corrosive to our diverse society, but also pathetic to the point that it almost reads like a caricature of far-right beliefs.

After all, even if you accept the bewildering premise that there are “too many” ethnic minorities in advertising – what exactly is the problem to be solved, and what does the “solution” look like? Pochin’s complaint is not just bizarre, it is a demonstration of the smallness of her politics – and Reform’s.

Good politics is about ideas, not identity. There are many challenges we have to work through as a country – tax and spend, healthcare, education and far more besides. I suspect that very few of those challenges are going to be solved by looking at them through the lens of skin colour, ethnicity or nationality.

If we allow our debates to become about nothing more than identity-led grievance – entirely disconnected from ideas and ideals – then we will be entirely unable to find solutions for the real problems we face.

That may be good enough for Reform, which thrives on failure and disillusionment. It should not be good enough for the rest of us.

William Deans is chief of staff to Alistair Carmichael MP, and holds an MSc in nationalism and ethnic conflict