Dear Matt Goodwin, why are you such a bad loser?

Pride is a brittle thing. One minute you’re soaring, the insurgent party’s tenacious rising-star, the voice of the “forgotten majority.” Next, the majority turns out to be a lot smaller than you were led to believe. Reform, scraped second place at the Gorton and Denton by-election, just the sort of constituency they told us they were supposed to win.

Unfair? Definitely! You’d led your campaign with all the skill of a distinguished Englishman. You are, after all, Matt Goodwin, jack of all trades: polemic firebrand, evidenced pollster, GB News presenter, truth-seeking academic, man of the people, wealth adviser, voice of the many, expert in female fertility. The idea that you couldn’t land a little constituency full of disgruntled voters like Gorton and Denton was farcical. Until it just happened.

But that’s okay. You came second. Much to be proud of. Best to bow out gracefully, thank the voters who trusted you, and pitch to those who didn’t. “I think the progressives were told how to vote, and I think what you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate a constituency,” you opined. Oh, no! Not like that, Matt. That’s not very gracious at all.

Or perhaps this is what we should expect of Reform and its acolytes. Political mouthpiece for grievance, Goodwin immediately reached for the Donald Trump playbook. It’s a tired script. Reform has always flirted with the populist notion that systems are rigged whenever the results don’t suit its narrative.

And yet, on the ground in Gorton and Denton, there was nothing unusual: a 47.5% turnout, ballots counted and a clear Green majority. Goodwin’s framing of “Islamist” votes, woke progressives and moral panic exposes just how superficial the Reform machine is, and how little it understands Britain.

Consider this: the voters Goodwin derides as “Islamists” backed a white, working-class woman standing for a party led nationally by a Jewish man. Hardly a portrait of sectarian tribalism. And even if some cast their ballots on a single-issue conscience vote, that still wouldn’t account for the enormous swing to the Greens. As in Caerphilly, voters are increasingly motivated to come out in their thousands to challenge the two-party system and block a Reform government. As hard as it might be to consider, could it be that you’re the problem?

Goodwin’s post-vote commentary offers a window into how Reform would fight a general election, and, god-forbid, govern. This is a party motivated entirely by grievance and indignation. It is hard to recall a single occasion on which it has expressed anything resembling confidence in Britain or its citizens.

Nigel Farage jets to Washington to warn of a UK free speech crisis; recent Reform convert Nadhim Zahawi recoils in horror at a scruffy man in Chelsea. Everything is portrayed as failing, yet the party itself – despite increasingly being filled with the very men who broke Britain – remains untouchable.

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Labour tried to become the nasty party. Big mistake

James Ball

Accountability, reflection and contrition are necessary, but not for them. Just this week, a Reform councillor reposted a death threat against a female Labour MP. Did the party intervene? You can guess the answer.

Meanwhile, the Greens’ campaign offers a very different model. Hannah Spencer’s message was rooted in lived experience, offering a vision of hope that was based on systemic change and the decency of man: dignity at work, restored public services, relief from cost-of-living pressures, community. She spoke authentically, cheerily, connecting with voters rather than performing for them. Woke nonsense, right? Well, except she won.

Perhaps the deeper problem is that Goodwin and his allies simply do not understand this country. That may not be surprising. They claim to speak for ordinary people while observing them from a distance, through the distorting lens of X, a social media ecosystem that rewards outrage and strips away civility and accountability.

They tour Hungary and the US in search of ideological inspiration, nod approvingly at Viktor Orbán’s pronatalist experiments and Trump’s ICE deployment, and circulate among the uber-wealthy and uber-aggrieved. Their “outsider” insurgency looks, on inspection, rather establishment: privately educated, well-connected, and perpetually resentful.

The irony is hard to miss. A party styling itself as the revolt of the “silent majority” was beaten by a candidate speaking plainly about work, public services and the cost of living. For all his accumulated titles and platforms, Goodwin scraped second – and responded not with reflection, but with sour grapes. Blaming “Islamists” is easier on a man’s ego, I suppose, than taking a long, searching look in the mirror.

Gorton and Denton will be remembered as more than just a by-election. It was a stress test for grievance politics, and grievance cracked first. Reform’s instinct when challenged is not to persuade but to tantrum; not to build trust but to erode it. That is the playbook. Win, or cry foul.

If this is Reform’s behaviour in defeat, just imagine them in power.