The Birmingham reggae band UB40 began as a quintessential product of the troubled era when Margaret Thatcher was the UK’s prime minister, archly taking their name from the “attendance card” needed to claim unemployment benefit, and singing songs about life at the sharp end of her rule. Their peak period lasted until the early- to mid-1990s.

In 2008, there came a rupture – due to “management and business disputes” rather than anything musical – which opened the way to the choice that now confronts their remaining fans: whether to go and see a new vehicle for the band’s former lead singer called “UB40 featuring Ali Campbell”, or stick with the outfit that still trades under its original name, and includes his estranged brother Robin. For the time being, there seems to be space for them both.

Given their staunchly anti-Tory roots, I’m not sure any of the musicians involved would appreciate comparisons that involve such politicians as Robert Jenrick, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch. But the drama currently gripping the people and parties vying for leadership of the British right fits the UB40 model like a glove.

Here, after all, is the story of two estranged groupings that now have almost exactly the same worldview: a deep attachment to Brexit, the secular religion of Thatcherism and a modern fixation with immigration and the wider culture wars. Their battle is driven by animosities that seem to be as much personal as ideological. But with every defection from the Conservatives to Reform UK, the sense of blurring has been accompanied by a mounting feeling that there can be only one winner. Politics is not like the market for ageing reggae acts: at the key points on the ideological spectrum, there tends to be room for just one viable force.

Last week’s drama – Badenoch’s discovery of Jenrick’s planned defection, his

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