08 Mar 2024
How do you approach an interview with someone representing a political party as mired in controversy, divisiveness and extremism as Reform UK? The organisation once known as the Brexit Party has been steadily growing in popularity over the past year, attracting both disgruntled former Tories and other voters fed up with the state of mainstream politics.
Former Watford Labour councillor John Dowdle is currently Reform UK’s prospective Parliamentary candidate for St Albans, waiting in the wings until a General Election is finally called.
“If I were to be elected as the MP for St Albans, obviously I’d move there, there’s no doubt about that,” he stressed, but his links to Watford run strong. Not only is he still a local resident, but so much of our conversation is initially dominated by the south Herts town that it is necessary to refocus attention on St Albans.
The thrust of John’s campaign seems to be a return to some sort of idyllic golden age, and an end to what he describes as “woke nonsense” and “net zero madness”.
“From what I have experienced from communicating with St Albans folk recently, there seems to be a desire to get a traditional way of life restored to St Albans. Local people are fed up with the Charter Market and other areas within St Albans city being constantly messed about by both St Albans district council and Hertfordshire County Council.”
I asked him to elaborate: “Well I mean the market for example, it just seems people are complaining about the way it’s been spoiled. It’s not like it used to be in the past. A lot of the stallholders are being driven out by higher fees.
“The Charter Market itself is just two days a week, isn’t it? What I’m aware of is that a lot of these market traders don’t just do one market day at a time, basically one day here, one day there, and that works for them. I mean, does the town where you live need to have a seven days a week market?”
In the interest of accuracy, I have to point out that there are no suggestions this is actually on the cards, in reality the plan is for the introduction of mainly food vans in St Peter’s Street throughout the week.
“Well that would be competing with the retail shops,” he said, “and maybe you end up cutting both throats. That’s what I want to look at, I understand I’m not standing for election to the council, I’m the prospective Parliamentary candidate, but certainly I want to talk to people who got these councillors elected and say let’s have another look at the market and see if we can’t restore it back to the way it was before.
“That’s the impression I get from [Enfield resident, former market trader and St Albans Voice Facebook group founder] Alice Young… She and I are not of the same mindset, but she’s an interesting source of historic information which isn’t always available elsewhere, and I do think she’s right.”
By this he means Alice’s well-documented – and subsequently discredited – theory that the Charter Market is being run into the ground by the Lib Dem administration, and will be replaced by all manner of alcohol-fuelled public events.
John has previously been outspoken about HCC funding the cost of rolling out a 20mph speed limit programme across the county, but is also calling for tax cuts at a district council level, and less gentrification of the district with fewer commuters into London.
“They are people who basically, every day are just catching the train into London, coming home again, going to bed and then getting up. They have little or no connection with the local community.
“St Albans used to be considered a Hertfordshire country town, but the character is changing. I think it’s too fast and we need to go back to its original roots and the origins of St Albans. I live nearby and I’ve been here over the years, and I’ve got friends here who think there’s too much meddling and interfering.
“Just let the town – I can’t call it a city, it’s the size of a town [Er no, it really is a city. Even the railway station knows that!] – let it grow organically. Organic evolution, let it evolve how people want. Don’t keep on imposing schemes and ideas and progress from above, let it come from below.”
Reform UK proudly declares it would use its first 100 days in power to target what it calls the “woke ideology” in schools and universities, which John is obviously on board with, even if he doesn’t agree with the specific terminology.
“We don’t have this woke problem. All this she, her, and him, it, or whatever, it’s just silly nonsense. We’re talking about education, what our children are being taught in school.
“What they should be taught is what’s going to help them for later life, things like being able to do arithmetic, understanding problems, maybe even doing home economics, things like cooking, and for boys as well as girls.
“It just seems that there’s so much resource and time and effort going into this wokery, and meanwhile we’ve got kids coming out of school who can’t even add up.”
So does he not think that as part of their education they should be given the opportunity to understand their own sexuality and place in the world?
“That would make sense, but then you’ve got people like [LGBTQ+ rights group] Stonewall deliberately targeting schools and children and sending people in there. For these kids to be exploring their sexuality, what does that mean for a nine-year-old, what are you talking about?”
It is an issue which obviously provokes a strong reaction from him, albeit not necessarily one he will find constituents in St Albans necessarily agreeing with.
“Then there’s the Tavistock Institute [which includes one of the longest running services for gender-diverse children and young people in the world], the scandal around that, we’re not helping kids when we’re doing that to them. You know we’re chopping bits off them and saying, well it’s for your own good, you’ll grow into this gender.
“Even JK Rowling has been targeted by these people quite viciously. She’s entitled to her opinion and I largely agree with her actually, I think she’s right. We never had any of this stuff when I was at school, I’d never heard any of this back then, you know? And I don’t know that we need it.”
The discussion prompts John to recollect an encounter with a childhood friend decades after they last saw each other, who had subsequently come out as gay.
“He had make-up on and his nails were all done, you know? I said ‘What the hell’s happening here then?’ and he said, ‘Well I’m gay aren’t I?’ and the way he was talking to me he really believed a quarter of the male population were closet homosexuals.
“It’s the same with this [woke] business as well. It’s ludicrous, an over-exaggeration of whatever the situation is, I just think it’s utter nonsense. There are more important things than that, and I think they need to leave it at least until they get to secondary school. Introducing it at primary school is just absurd and I think most parents agree with that.
“What we need, really, is some common sense.”
This, then, is what John considers the main focus of his campaign, a back-to-basics approach to politics.
“There’s nothing wrong with common sense, you know, let’s have more of it.”
Having been a member of the Labour Party for many years, John made the decision to terminate his membership following the 2019 General Election, joining Reform UK after being attracted by their policies on electoral, economic, energy and NHS reform.
By standing for Reform UK, he is effectively splitting the Tory vote in St Albans.
“Well yeah, we’re quite happy about this. The truth is that Reform UK policy is to replace the Conservatives.”
This prompts a detailed explanation of how Nigel Farage was betrayed by Boris Johnson with his pledge to ‘get Brexit done’, something John does not agree happened.
“We should have severed all ties with Europe, including the [European Convention on] Human Rights, which allows uncontrolled immigration to this country…”
It’s taken just over 20 minutes, but inevitably, the issue of immigration has entered the fray.
Reform UK is calling for net zero immigration, so the same number of people who leave the UK each year should be equal to the number arriving. It wants to completely eliminate illegal migration and prevent anyone entering the UK illegally from claiming asylum, no matter their country of origin or personal circumstances.
John is obviously a keen advocate of these measures: “It’s absurd. I mean, we had 1.2 million immigrants last year, which is a city the size of Berlin.
“Part of our other policies are that we would remove caps on medical training for doctors and nurses, because what we’re doing at the moment is plundering Third World countries at their expense and taking their nurses and doctors and importing them here. What we should be doing is training our own people, and then the cost of training would be pro rata reduced every year for 10 years if they stay in the NHS. That’s the way we get indigenous people to take on those roles.”
He is also advocating that energy should be British-controlled, which involves resuming fracking and re-establishing coal mining in the UK, while also expanding the production of oil and gas from the North Sea.
John explained: “The thing is that I guess Britain contributes around one per cent of the world’s carbon, and historically you could say since the Industrial Revolution that it’s closer to five per cent of the total amount over that whole period of time, but although we had an early start, we had no idea what we were doing, nobody thought about the consequences and it’s only now, in recent years, that we’re aware of this.
“I think I have used the phrase ‘net zero madness’, and there is a certain madness about this. Yes we all understand the nature of the problem, but we ain’t the problem, it’s countries like China and India. And what are we doing? We’re giving them foreign aid to fund their space programmes, I mean you can’t make this stuff up can you?”
But if, as he argues, we’re not the problem, how can there be a solution if we don’t do something?
“There need to be global solutions. We’re piddling on the margins when it comes to this particular problem. So let’s stop exaggerating it, let’s stop adding all this woke virtual signalling.”
He also dismissed suggestions that Reform UK is a far right party: “It might be slightly right of centre, but we’re largely centrist. The policies we have are centrist.”
So what do people say to him when he knocks on their door to rally their vote?
“Erm, I haven’t done any knocking. Not yet. No. Mainly I’m talking to my own people. And, you know, we’re all like-minded.”
But he has been active on local Facebook groups? “Yeah, I like to pitch in and see what’s going on. It’s a way of getting feedback, to see what people think. I mean this 15,000 homes on Green Belt land…”
Which is set by the Conservative government in the National Planning Policy Framework?
“Er, no, I don’t think so. I think that’s [SADC’s] choice. They don’t need to be told their targets, it’s up to them to do it in the district Local Plan.
“What has happened subsequently of course is that [Michael] Gove has said there is no need to build on Green Belt land. OK, so withdraw all those parts because again you’re changing the nature and the character of the area. That is what local people want and I stand alongside the people, I don’t think the council does.”
John attended a recent meeting of the Harpenden Society featuring Lib Dem Cllr Paul de Kort, in which he asked what is happening about flood risk analysis: “I saw a copy of a letter from the Environment Agency sent to the council four months ago and they’re saying ‘We’ve got serious concerns about this’, and I think they’re right to say that.
“If you think about it, it’s not just properties you’re going to need. You’ve got roads, you’ve got substations, cables, GP practices, dental practices, shopping centres, I mean we’re going to concrete over parts the Green Belt, and it’s going to make flooding even worse. It’s obvious isn’t it?”
He quoted former Labour Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in describing the current political structure in the St Albans district: “They are the sort of people who want power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
By this, he explained, he meant there was a need for more practical application by all of our district councillors, particularly the controlling Liberal Democrat administration.
“I think they’re spoiling it. They have control and they’re putting on all sorts of bread and circuses routines, street parties, etc. I go back to that phrase, power without responsibility.
“They’re also outsourcing a lot of things. They’ve done the same thing over in Watford and Three Rivers, for example with community housing. My understanding is that it’s possible people in Watford could be offered housing at Jubilee Square, for example.”
[This isn’t actually the case, Jubilee Square will house people on the St Albans district housing list.]
“The thing is, there’s that much work for them to do, otherwise they will end up becoming constant campaigners, always campaigning about something and not actually paying attention to the administration and governance of the council, because they’re actually getting less and less and less and less to do in terms of governance over time.”
