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I don't have a problem with Reform - I support proportional representation because I think the way that excluding 20% of the population from meaningful political participation (whether that is the populist right in the UK with the globalists in control of the Conservative party, or the centre-right in the US with MAGA in control of the Republican party, or various left-wing equivalents) is bad for democracy, and that Reform should have more MPs than they do. I profoundly disagree with Reform and I am proud of the fact that my country is more resistant than most to their kind of politics, but getting along with your political opponents is part of living in a civilisation.
I think that Nigel Farage's decision to take up anti-lockdownism in 2020 was not the result of a social movement. You implied that it was. The presence or absence of an internal democratic structure in Reform is relevant to this question.
This is incorrect. Reform was founded (as the Brexit Party) in November 2018 long before the pandemic. The name was changed during the lockdown, but if Farage had wanted to stand up a normal party organisation he had had over a year to do so. In any case, Alba (founded February 2021) was able to stand up a more normal political party organisation during a COVID lockdown (although, I agree, not a full set of local associations).
GB News hit the air in June 2021, after Farage's attempts to run a US-style anti-lockdown campaign had failed. In 2020 his most lucrative gig appears to have been Fox News.
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