Reform UK held their party conference at the Birmingham NEC at the start of the month. Delegates queued for an hour to get in on the first day as an estimated 6,000 activists attended.
The mood amongst delegates could not have been more buoyant – this is a party that believes it is going places. Delegates who had been to a previous Reform conference said it was unrecognisable compared to last year’s event.
News organisations, especially GB News, were everywhere. Wherever you looked, the branding and presentation was highly professional. Whatever outsiders might think, this is a party that believes it can form the next Government. Both the polls and the bookies’ odds suggest they might be right!
Obviously we’re some distance from the next General Election, but this Conference showed that the party is thinking seriously about how it would USE the power of Government.
First up, Nigel Farage appointed Zia Yusuf to be Reform’s Policy Chief and he will develop the policies for a Reform Government across the board – which will not necessarily be tied to positions they held at the last General Election. Reform’s membership or conference will likely have little say on what those policies will be – this is an incredibly top-down party.
But even without the details of the policies, there’s some things that are crystal clear about how a Reform UK administration would start.
Reform UK wants to restore ‘Parliamentary democracy’. What they mean by that is removing anything that might restrict a Government’s power to take action – annoying things such as the law, human rights, experts, scientists, senior civil servants, scrutiny, oversight, checks and balances and so on. They’ve got the Project 2025 Trump playbook and they will bring it to Westminster if they win power.
What a Reform UK Government will look in its first 100 days is something like this –
- Appoint 500+ new Reform UK peers to ensure the Lords can’t get in the way
- Repeal the human rights act, equality and environmental legislation, and much more
- Replace the top levels of the civil service with people that are on board with Reform UK’s agenda
That’s the beginning – for clues on where they go next, just peer over the Atlantic at everything Trump 2.0 is doing. At least Trump had to win nearly 50% of the vote to win power, but polls show that Reform UK could win a majority on less than 30% of the vote.
That’s something we should all be worried about.
We also need to be aware that Reform UK, like all parties, is a coalition. There are two main groups in that coalition. The first are ex-Conservatives who largely hark back to the 1950s as a time where Britain was ‘still great’. At one large fringe meeting, the attendees were asked who used to be a Conservative Party member and more than 75% of the room put their hands up. The other group can only be described as a Trump-style MAGA wing, personified by Zia Yusuf. Both wings are firmly united behind Nigel Farage.
They all share a view of life in the UK today that many liberals will not recognise. That was summed up neatly by the recent Daily Mail headline that asked “When did Britain become North Korea?”
To exemplify this, Reform UK put Lucy Connolly, recently released from prison after serving time for race hate, on their main stage. But it didn’t stop there. You had a session with young Reform UK Councillors where things said included –
- London is too dangerous for young women to visit
- Young people are being taught to “hate our flag” in schools
- By teaching kids about things like climate change, we’re causing anxiety and making children have nightmares
Of course, there was another conference speaker who said the Royal Family’s cancers were likely caused by the Covid vaccine.
Some of this might seem outlandish to Liberal Democrats, but make no mistake, there is a significant part of the population that will buy into this stuff. It should also be noted that at least some of the more controversial things being said, were being said by non-party spokespeople – so are disownable by the leadership.
None of this should distract from the overwhelming purpose and professionalism that was plainly visible across this conference. They are learning. They are the first party, outside of the Conservatives or Labour, to lead in the polls for 6 months in 100 years. They cannot be underestimated.
We are living in unprecedented times politically – there literally hasn’t been a time where trust in politics was this low AND that voting preferences were split across so many parties.
34% of the vote didn’t just win the last General Election, it gave Labour one of the biggest majorities ever. More than a year on, it’s clear that Labour didn’t really know what to do with that majority once they had won it and we’ve seen little change as a consequence.
Reform UK will not be like that should they win.
* Conference Tourist is known to the LDV Team and is sharing their experience anonymously.
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13 Comments
You fear for Labour if there’s a significant economic downturn. Voters walking down their local high street gives them a powerful reminder of the failings of the last government and the current administration. There is no getting away from the fact that many voters see those rapid demographic changes and the problems they associate with them. Racking up votes in metropolitan areas did them no favors in the 2019 General Election. It will be won or lost, as it was then, in Labour’s old heartlands where those changes are at their most visible.
Good article.
Can I suggest as a complement to this, watching Nick Tyrone’s coverage of Reform’s conference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69_nADiofk
It’s not necessary to agree with all of his conclusions but I think it’s worth highlighting his observation that Reform is drawing support from ‘normal people’. To be polling as well as they are, that must be true, but I don’t know that we (or other parties) are necessarily drawing the right lessons.
By which I don’t mean, we need to try to outflank Reform from the Right as both Labour and the Tories seem to be trying to do. But we do need to constantly bear in mind that a large part of their support is coming from normal people, NOT crazies we can or should write off as being extremists or stupid.
Remember one of Mark Pack’s observations about the electorate: most people are uninformed about politics because they’re uninterested and don’t pay attention to it… That doesn’t make them stupid. It does mean those of us who _are_ interested need to not take people for granted.
“most people are uninformed about politics because they’re uninterested and don’t pay attention to it”
but politics is interested in them 🙂
@Jenny Barnes – true. But that doesn’t mean that people who are uninformed about politics are stupid! Or that they’re supporting a particular party for a strong, ideological reason. It could be nothing more than they see the government doing badly and Mr Farage sounds like he’s talking common sense / is willing to ‘tell it like it is’… But that’s not the same as them being completely on board with everything he wants to do.
The political debate right now seems fixated on whether Reform will form the next government, or whether Labour can just about hang on. Even given their timid, technocratic instincts, it’s plausible Labour’s numbers will improve as they deliver on at least part of their programme—but it’s hard to see them generating the kind of change that would win them a sweeping mandate at the next general election. With the Lib Dems holding a sizeable presence in Westminster, a Labour–Lib Dem coalition feels like an underpriced and under-discussed scenario. If I were a betting man, I’d be curious to see the odds on Ed Davey as Deputy PM by 2028.
” It will be won or lost, as it was then, in Labour’s old heartlands where those {demographic} changes are at their most visible.”
Are they though?
It’s true of some Northern towns, but not in all areas where Labour has lost much of its traditional support. The reasons for that have largely been economic and the loss of our industrial base in the last 50 years or so.
This support, at least partially, came back to Labour last year. It’s melted away very quickly for very obvious reasons. The Labour Party is hopelessly and messily split. They’ll even fall behind the Tories in the next month or two. I can’t see any other outcome other than an annihilation at the next council elections in May.
If this leads to a huge shake up in the party, they could recover but I’m not confident about that.
These are not “unprecedented times, politically.” The parallels with 1930s Germany are disturbing and ominous. ‘Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’ (Attr. George Santayana)
The next General election will not be until 2029 (turkeys don’t vote for Christmas) unless Starmer gives up sooner in absolute despair. But the elections next May are just over seven months away – including the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments as well as locals in England. And it is clear that both Labour and the Tories are going to do extremely badly then. Here in Wales, Labour is currently down to 14% in the polls (and Conservatives down to 11%) according to YouGov; which would mean Labour will be down to 11 seats (and Tories down to 6 seats) in the new 96-member Welsh Parliament. And recovery in the next 7 months does not seem to be on the cards for either party – both are still in decline. The new Parliament will be a toss-up between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK in terms of control, with an estimated 38 and 37 seats respectively. LibDems must decide who they are going to support with the estimated 3 seats they are likely to win! Their choice should presumably be to back Plaid Cymru (not in a coalition!) to keep Reform out. The Scottish Parliament seems likely to have a similar result. I agree with Peter Martin that Labour faces annihilation next May in the English locals, too!. They are currently burying their collective heads in the sand, and refusing to contemplate the catastrophic defeats they face. So how ready are we?
Excellent article. Scary. Very.
An almighty wake up call.
PR and HoL reform are now extremely urgent.
(By the way, well done to Ed Davey for providing constructive opposition in HoC and also for providing robust opposition to the far right here and across the Atlantic)
In all of this, Lib Dem opposition to Farage and Reform must continue to be absolute. There is still a large proportion of the population who will not slide towards Reform and it is vital that they see us as their rock in that. I reckon the increase in our local government vote in nearly every by-election can be attributed to that.
All parties in the UK should be looking to control migration to our shores. An open door policy only encourages illegal migration and does not protect those already living hear as citizens. We need to ensure adequate infrastructure at all levels and reduce the impact of Labour’s obsession with blight, decay and high rise buildings.
“An open door policy only encourages illegal migration”
Reform level reasoning: if there really was an open door policy (there isn’t and to my knowledge no party is proposing one) there would not be any illegal migration because all migration would be legal and unrestrained.
So both a straw man argument and illogical.
Within the next 2 years, it is almost certain we will see a major fiscal event. A gilt crisis, coupled with a run on Sterling perhaps. This parliament is unable to control spending, and there is only one way that ends.
Such a crisis could splinter the already divided parliamentary Labour Party. It’s possible we will see a General Election in 2027 under those circumstances. And, I would implore Lib Dems to NOT seek a pact with Labour. You will do perfectly well without one.
As Labour’s polling shrinks it will become more obvious that the Lib Dems can form the official opposition to a Reform government. Our system needs a strong opposition to function. So I would say, “Get Ready”.