Growing pains
Farage took back control of Reform UK around two years ago. As the party leaves the terrible twos behind, it enters a challenge known to every 3-5 year old: growing pains. I returned to Reform’s annual conference this year and found a party battling between where it comes from and what it needs to be to succeed.
Operational build-out was clear with the party’s first Business Day appended to the running order. Serious organisations attended, though largely by their public affairs heads than the CEOs which travel to Labour and the Conservatives. There was also some evidence of the misunderstanding of relationship-building which we’ve discussed in previous notes: who wants to pay £600 per head for a Business Dinner only to find the wine’s not included and you’re stung £30 for the paint stripper? It may seem like a small thing but it feels short-sighted to me.
The exhibition was magnitudes improved on last year – not just in layout but the range of stands and sponsors showed how many more corporates and charities have downgraded the reputational risk of association. A creator studio featuring small booths with branded backdrops to present short form content or longer interviews was also present, an intelligent copy of the same introduced by Labour last year in Liverpool.
But the question underneath that visible professionalisation is whether the organisation itself is maturing at the same speed.
The event got off to a rough start with a genuinely good Channel 4 hit. Its undercover investigation alleged that senior Reform figures were willing to explore arrangements through which support from an ineligible overseas donor could be provided indirectly, including through political polling.
It resulted in James Orr and Dan Jukes stepping down. The loss of James Orr is significant in the policy development weight he brought. The loss of Dan Jukes, for anyone who’s interacted with him, felt inevitable but still shocking when it actually happened.
The question is whether Jukes’s exit represents a maturing press operation that understands the value of cauterising a wound, or whether Farage’s hand was forced. Farage’s long-standing loyalty to George Cottrell is instructive here.
It was clear from Reform’s initial response to the exposé that there was an ambition to ride it out. Then, later in the day we can infer there was a moment where the calculation changed. I wonder who the voice was in the room who could have forced Farage to sacrifice the man who sees him as a ‘father figure’.
Did Farage do it willingly or was his hand forced? If you look through history, power is taken first by the demagogue and then by the bureaucrat.
Zia Yusuf has been strangely absent from conference, appearing officially only for his main stage speech. Compare this to Tice or Kruger, who come it at 10 appearances apiece. Yusuf’s attack on Ben Wallace, which drew opprobrium even from pro-Reform voices, did not lead to any public reprimand from Farage and left some to speculate that Farage no longer had full control over the levers of power.
There is plenty of speculation on an early election, but first movement in the polls reflect a Conservative Party getting back on its feet. Where Sir Keir starved the party of oxygen to focus fire on Reform, Burnham has reversed the calculation. I think the bump in the polls has more to do with this than Badenoch’s admittedly stronger recent performance.
Polling reflects a core of votes who are not ideologically committed to either of the main right wing parties but are deeply opposed to any left wing coalition. For these people, it is simply a matter of knowing which of the former is best placed to defeat the latter. Burnham’s current tactic benefits the Conservatives in this regard. And if it continues, does Reform have the stamina which requires structure as well as determination?
I don’t believe that Zia, or Tice, has the ability to win an election that Farage can – but if one of them owns the structures, the victory could be theirs all the same. Think back to the Tory confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP in 2017. It was signed not by the party leaders but by the Chief Whips. A newly-ennobled Farage who has delivered 50 seats in an election (which I feel is their real high watermark) can sit back as president and both sides can keep their promise not to merge. Zia appears to hate the Conservatives even more than Farage, but can the same be said of everyone vying for succession?
What does this mean?
There’s a fair amount of evidence that party is building out the policy and research team but is naturally under-resourced. From what I heard from some attendees who’d held meetings with Reform HQ, the party is also honest if it hasn’t had the capacity to develop a policy on something that a business or charity approaches them about.
That suggests an open door for organisations who can pragmatically offer policies or data that can be translated into a platform of ideas. But organisations and leaders should go in with their eyes open: they are reliant on Reform learning to build the relationships on trust that often show gaps in practice. This is addressable, but the Channel 4 programme underlined the combination of hubris and purely transactional politics which others have experienced.
Reform’s success is all there to build on – perhaps the question for those engaging with them now is when it comes to Reform’s leadership measuring their heights against the notches on the doorframe, who will come out taller?
