What would Reform be without Nigel Farage?

Barely have they abandoned the sinking ship that is HMS Tory than right-wingers are finding their liferaft taking on water. Reform seemed unstoppable for a small while, often outpolling a Conservative party whose captain went to sea four months ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Now Rupert Lowe, its most prominent MP other than Nigel Farage, has lost the whip and been reported to police for alleged ‘threats of physical violence’ against Zia Yusuf, the party’s chairman. Lowe denies any wrongdoing. Discontent has swelled in the ranks, especially among younger and very online members, who regard Lowe as the most ideologically sound of Reform’s MPs.

For liberals, it’s tempting to gloat. The historian Maurice Cowling wasn’t entirely wrong when he called the political economist John Stuart Mill ‘a man of sneers and smears and pervading certainty’. We do like a bit of the old sneering, us lot. Even so, we should check our schadenfreude.