Laurence Fox’s party is doomed to fail

It was only a matter of time, in retrospect. There is a new political party in town. This one is called Reclaim and is the brainchild of the actor and singer Laurence Fox. I’m sure all of you know who Fox is already, but if not, here’s a refresher: earlier this year, Fox went on BBC Question Time. While on the programme he said some fairly innocuous things that for some strange reason blew up into a new battleground in the culture wars. Since then, Fox has become something of a hero to a certain segment of social media while being demonised by another. He’s now decided to start a ‘new political movement which promises to make our future a shared endeavour, not a divisive one’. Unfortunately for Laurence Fox, this new party is a terrible idea, one that will almost certainly end in embarrassment for him.

For a start, I think there is a paradox in launching a political party to end the culture wars which will only inflame the tensions that are at the centre of those conflicts even further.