When Nigel Farage first proposed placing migrant detention centres exclusively in communities that elect Green Party MPs, the mainstream media predictably hyperventilated. “A violation of the rule of law,” they cried. “Authoritarianism,” they wept into their oat-milk flat whites. I confess, I too was initially skeptical when I first heard the pitch over a rather aggressively priced Chablis at a garden party in the Home Counties last week.
But after letting the idea breathe, and after a particularly insufferable dinner in Islington where my hostess lectured me for twenty minutes about the carbon footprint of imported sea bass, I have come to a controversial conclusion. Weaponizing state infrastructure to actively terrorize your political rivals is not a constitutional crisis. It is exactly the sort of fresh, out-of-the-box thinking this country has been begging for.
My former colleague Fraser Nelson recently wrung his hands in the pages of the Times, calling this a “new partisan style” and lamenting the death of the “PM-for-all” ideal. He correctly pointed out that this abandons the basic British principle that the government will treat you equally under the law regardless of how you vote. I have always respected Fraser, but I fear he is stuck in a bygone era of basic civic decency.
The British public do not actually want a PM-for-all. They want a Prime Minister who will specifically ensure that the couple in Brighton who refused to use plastic straws are forced to wake up every morning to the sound of guard dogs barking at a four-metre perimeter fence. They want agility. They want innovation. Above all, they want a government willing to look at the majestic, sweeping powers of the state and ask, “How can we use this to aggressively troll a vegan?”
For decades, we have pretended that public works projects are meant to serve the public good. We build hospitals where the sick are, we build schools where the children are, and we build roads where the traffic is. This utilitarian approach has left us spiritually hollow. By decoupling infrastructure from necessity and attaching it purely to electoral spite, Reform UK has unlocked a thrilling new frontier of localism.
If we cannot use the immense, coercive power of the British state to ruin the property values of people who care about biodiversity, then what exactly is the point of winning elections?
Imagine, if you will, the sheer aesthetic triumph of placing a brutalist concrete processing facility right in the middle of a community-supported agriculture scheme in Stroud. The juxtaposition of razor wire gleaming in the morning sun just beyond an organic beetroot harvest would not only serve as a robust deterrent to illegal immigration, but it would also teach Green voters that actions have consequences. Specifically, the consequence of voting for environmental protections is that the government will personally destroy your environment.
Critics, of course, point to the “insuperable” practical and legal problems. They note that no local council in a Green-voting area would ever grant planning permission for a maximum-security internment camp. They point out that it blatantly violates human rights acts, zoning laws, and the fundamental tenets of a democratic society.
But must we always be so dreadfully literal? This is precisely why we need sweeping reform of the planning system. If we let local bureaucracy and basic human rights legislation stand in the way of erecting penal colonies purely to annoy people who compost, we are effectively surrendering the nation to NIMBYs. We cannot let red tape prevent us from manifesting our petty grievances in concrete and steel.
Furthermore, this policy opens up entirely new avenues for democratic engagement. If voters know that casting a ballot for the Liberal Democrats will result in a nuclear waste repository being built in their local dog park, they will be far more engaged in the electoral process. We have spent years trying to boost voter turnout through public awareness campaigns. I assure you, nothing will drive a community to the polls faster than the threat of a federally mandated chemical weapons testing facility opening next door to their Waitrose.
We must stop treating government as a bland, impartial administrator of services and start recognizing it for what it truly is: a vast, expensive apparatus that exists to help people like me win arguments at dinner parties. Nigel Farage understands this. He recognizes that true statecraft is simply cyberbullying with a budget.
So before we dismiss Reform UK’s plan as the deranged, illegal fantasy of a party that views the rule of law as an irritating suggestion, let us pause and reflect. Let us ask ourselves whether our democracy wouldn't be just a little bit more vibrant if we finally embraced the civic value of weaponized spite.