ANDREW PIERCE: Flaky policies and the unsettling reality of Reform (2024)

After Nigel Farage’s bombshell announcement on Monday that he was seizing control of Reform UK and running for Parliament for the eighth time, there was a palpable air of excitement when his party’s senior figures convened for their shadow cabinet meeting on Zoom two days later.

The movement’s A-team – including Richard Tice, brusquely demoted from leader to chairman; ex-Tory Cabinet minister Ann Widdecombe; businessman and former MEP Rupert Lowe and broadcaster Dr David Bull – had planned to toast their hero.

But when they assembled in their online video-conference on Wednesday, there was one conspicuous absentee: Farage. ‘Astonishingly rude,’ spat one veteran supporter last night.

Already there had been troubling signs that Farage had no intention of treating his colleagues as a ‘Cabinet of equals’. In an interview on Tuesday’s Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Farage had appeared to rewrite a key Reform policy on immigration live on air.

When asked about Reform’s flagship proposal to process asylum seekers in British overseas territories, he declared: ‘I don’t think it is terribly practical.’

Presenter Mishal Husain said: ‘The policy you’ve put forward is not practical?’ Farage replied: ‘I think it is a very difficult policy... I took over yesterday, so give me more than 12 hours and I will sort a few things out.’

Farage’s veteran supporter tells me: ‘I couldn’t believe Nigel ditched a settled policy in a radio interview. We are a team – not a sole trader.’

But whatever misgivings there may be over his leadership style, there is no doubt that Farage’s return has turned this general election campaign upside down. The latest opinion polls show Reform on 17 per cent, within a whisker of the Tories. And with several weeks remaining, it could still push Rishi Sunak into a humiliating third place in the opinion polls.

Now some observers fear the movement could up-end British politics for a generation – and fatally weaken the Tory Party.

So what exactly is Reform, what does it stand for, and who – beyond Farage and Tice – is involved in it?

Strictly speaking, Reform is not really a political party at all. It is, in fact, a limited company that makes annual returns to Companies House. Farage owns 53 per cent of the stock and Tice 33 per cent: which means Farage owns Reform.

Its submissions to Companies House are revealing. Under ‘occupation’, Farage is described as ‘Leader of a political party’. Tice? ‘Director’. Another shareholder is Paul Oakden, Reform’s ‘chief executive’ and shadow cabinet member, as well as a former chairman of Ukip – which preceded the Brexit Party. Never far from controversy, Oakden once masqueraded as an airline pilot on dating website MingleVille, on which he also posed with a £150,000 Aston Martin, implying it was his own – it really belonged to his boss, the then Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.

Reform has boasted that it will field candidates in all 650 constituencies – but the snap election has left them scrambling to fill more than 100 vacancies. This could mean they will have to cut corners when it comes to vetting, which could be disastrous.

In April it was revealed that at least 12 of the party’s candidates had been ditched or suspended over offensive social media posts.

There have also been pressing financial issues. Since 2021, Tice, a millionaire property developer, has been responsible for around 80 per cent of its declared funding in the form of loans and donations. At the end of 2022, Mehrtash A’Zami, a director of Reform, said that the party had net liabilities of more than £1 million, a ‘significant percentage of which comes from directors’ loans’. Tice alone has loaned Reform £1.1 million.

But the return of Farage should ease the funding crisis. Little noticed at Monday’s press conference was the presence of billionaire property developer Nick Candy and his blonde-bombshell wife, the actress Holly Valance.

Candy, who has given £270,000 to the Tories, is an interesting political beast. In 1997, he voted for Tony Blair but has since backed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. ‘Candy can spot a winner,’ said one astute associate. ‘It’s fair to speculate he will financially back Farage, who is a proven winner.’

Christopher Harborne – boss of Sherriff Global Group, which trades in private planes – gave £13.7 million to the Brexit party, making him one of the biggest donors in British political history. He is also expected to start giving to Reform now Farage is at the helm.

When it comes to policy, Reform has some attractive ideas that undoubtedly appeal to lifelong Tories. The 40 per cent income tax threshold, currently £50,270 would be raised to £70,000. By contrast, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s decision to freeze the thresholds until 2028 will be the single biggest tax-raising measure since the 1970s.

Reform will also abolish inheritance tax on estates under £1 million. Currently it kicks in for the portion of any estate worth more than £325,000. For estates over £2 million, Reform would halve the levy from 40 per cent to 20 per cent – or nothing if you make an equivalent donation to charity.

But why are Reform pledging to up the threshold for paying income tax from £12,500 to £20,000 a year? Not only is this wildly unaffordable, it would reinforce the pernicious idea that only richer people should pay tax and fund public services, cementing the something-for-nothing culture that has grown since the pandemic.

Reform is on stronger ground when it argues that consumers have been ‘ripped off and failed by weak regulators’. But their answer is to take 50 per cent of the main utilities back into public ownership, with the other half taken over by pension funds.

The price tag will be ruinous. The Centre for Policy Studies, a Thatcherite think-tank, estimated in 2019 that full nationalisation of energy transmission, water, the Royal Mail and rail would cost £196 billion.

Reform has also proposed an ‘employer immigration tax’ to encourage companies to hire British workers rather than cheaper immigrants. This would raise employer National Insurance contributions from 13.8 per cent to 20 per cent of the salary of every non-British citizen they employ (health and social care sectors and companies with fewer than five staff would be exempt).

The tax would affect around 3.5 million foreign workers – and Farage admitted this week that ‘some’ small businesses ‘might’ go bust as a result. So much for being on the side of workers. All eyes will be on Reform’s plan to ‘stop the boats’. The policy document promises that Reform would ‘pick up migrants out of boats and take [them] back to France’, insisting that ‘we are legally allowed to do this’ thanks to unnamed but highly convenient ‘international treaties’. If that’s true, why has no one thought of it before?

Laughably, when it comes to the crisis in social care, Reform states: ‘To be decided.’ Not very encouraging with an election 26 days away.

Could they win any seats? Farage stands a good chance of taking Clacton in Essex, while Tice hopes the party can win another five or so across the country.

They are unconcerned that their tactics will split the Tory vote and hand Starmer a landslide victory. Indeed, they relish the prospect, which is strange, as a big majority will enable him to unpick Brexit, Farage’s political raison d’etre.

One seasoned Reform campaigner mutters: ‘With Nigel, it’s like riding a tiger. A tiger is unpredictable. I thought we were going to talk about running Britain properly but we have turned the clock back to Ukip and immigration and will be accused of xenophobia all over again.

‘Under Richard Tice we were building a strong movement, but Farage has thrown a rock into the pool. I’m delighted we’re surging in the polls – but strong leadership is not about strong egos.

‘I am worried because we need teamwork, cooperation and compromise. Events of the last week don’t make that seem likely.’