The adulation for Nigel Farage was intense. Hundreds of members queued up to get his signature on a “Reform FC” football shirt, at a cost of £100 a pop. “I just love him!”, one activist spontaneously blurted out in the middle of the leader’s keynote speech on Friday afternoon.
Farage moved his speech forwards by a few hours to capitalise on the latest bad news for Labour, and one ally claimed to be delighted at the contrast between “the Government in chaos versus Nigel, who is top in the polls, setting out his vision for the country”.
Caption: Nigel Farage pulled forward the time of his conference speech following the resignation of Angela Rayner (Photo: Reuters)Perhaps that is just as well: the main policy announced during the conference was almost immediately mired in confusion. Farage used his speech to promise that “we will stop the boats within two weeks of winning government” – but the next day he told broadcasters that in fact he meant Channel crossings by asylum seekers would end within a fortnight of new legislation taking effect, a process which usually takes several months.
Officials are working increasingly closely with think-tanks including the Centre for a Better Britain and the Prosperity Institute, with other right-of-centre wonks also engaging with Reform as they hedge their bets amid the Conservative party’s ongoing struggle to regain support in the opinion polls.
“The corporate world have basically blanked us,” an insider said of the period before Reform’s surge in the polls and successful local election campaign. “They can’t do that any more, the City is going to have to take us seriously.”
Caption: Lucy Connolly (right) was welcomed with rapturous applause as she joined newspaper columnist Allison Pearson on stage (Photo: Oli Scarff/AFP)That chimes with the boast of one of the event’s organisers who said: “You’ve got to have a bit of fun with it, it can’t be like Tory conference where everyone is asleep in their chairs.”
“When you meet their backroom staff it becomes clear that it’s only the principals who can actually make any decisions,” a corporate attendee said.
‘Tory graveyard’ warning
Even as the conference projected a more mainstream, business-friendly image there were signs of the Ukip-style conspiracy and crankery – Saturday featured appearances on the main stage from TV doctor Aseem Malhotra, who claimed that Covid vaccines had given cancer to members of the royal family, and Lucy Connolly, a woman jailed for suggesting that asylum seekers should be burned to death.
One Westminster insider said the party could benefit from an infusion of external expertise, but warned: “Loyalty is everything for Nigel, so he’d be suspicious of anyone who is coming from outside.”
Caption: A member of the party shows his hat signed by Nigel Farage during the annual conference (Photo: AP)A young activist told The i Paper that Farage needed to “wean off” taking more defectors or Reform would end up “Conservatives 2.0” and a “Tory graveyard”.
Farage agrees. He says privately that one reason the party needs former Tories is to bolster its lack of experience, forecasting that it will take around a year or two for Reform to be prepared to run a government – although it is already in power in a dozen county councils.
The party could extend its power as soon as next year, some insiders believe. A Reform donor attending the conference predicted that the party would win control of the Welsh Senedd in May, and could also be the largest party in the Scottish Parliament – as well as having a decent chance of victory in the London mayoral election.
Caption: Nigel Farage holds a Reform-branded ‘Farage 10’ shirt at the NEC (Photo: AP)
Reform will benefit from a split on the left, he predicts, with pro-Gaza candidates likely to pick up at least 30 seats in the next general election.
One senior Reform insider said that the real deadline for party readiness was May 2028, by which time it hopes to have a full slate of policies and an entire “shadow Cabinet” ready to fit into the equivalent roles in government.
Reform’s strength, despite gaps in its organisational fitness, derives from its popular support – and the increasing perception that its backers are not right-wing fanatics, but ordinary residents of Middle England.
One pollster remarked: “You look at who the average Reform voter is – they really are just the average voter!” And a party insider told The i Paper: “The risk of joining has just diminished, the reputational fear they had – that has gone, it’s gone.”
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