Neoliberal Centrist Dad, episode 9

Notes on today’s Reform press conference - and why it contained three important pieces of information

Today, the Reform party held a press conference today in central London. They had several things to announce, all of them significant in terms of the current direction of British politics. A lot of people are still taking the Reform threat to other parties too lightly. Most of them are in the Conservative party, of course, who continue to console themselves with the idea that “Kemi takes care of the Nigel problem.”

She certainly does not. Badenoch is Farage’s dream Tory leader - someone who is amplifying his issues, while clearly demonstrating that the Conservative party will not be the people to change anything. She’s acting like his press agent at the moment.

Anyhow, there were three main things Reform announced today:

1. Their membership is now at 100,000

This is actually pretty huge. That’s not many behind the Tories (who have circa 130k), and eclipses the Lib Dems in terms of party member numbers (the LDs have around 90k). The issue Reform have had up until now is lack of ground soldiers. There is no way to know yet the distribution of those 100k Reform members, but if they are concentrated in areas where Reform have the greatest chances of taking seats (which is statistically fairly likely), then this is a major problem for everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean the Tories first and foremost, but with everyone else having to think about it a little.

2. Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory minister, not only joins Reform but will stand for them in 2025

Any defection from the Tories to Reform is good news for Reform, even if the defector isn’t a current sitting member of parliament. Jenkyns is a former education minister to boot (someone might want to add something snarky here about the unfortunate place our country has come to when Andrea Jenkyns can boast of being a former education minister, but I couldn’t possibly comment).

Just getting her to come to Reform would have been a good steal for Farage, but the announcement that Jenkyns will stand in the inaugural Lincolnshire mayoral contest in May 2025 makes it much more interesting. Lincolnshire is prime Reform territory. Richard Tice’s seat, Boston and Skegness, is in the county, and if they can consolidate their position during this parliament, all eight of the county’s parliamentary seats could go Reform - they came second in two of them, got over 10,000 votes in four of them (and just missed out on 10k in another two seats), and got at least 7,000 in every one of them.

Having a former Tory minister put out a signal that Reform are the new, “real” right-wing party - mostly to the people of Lincolnshire, but also to the country - is massive.

3. The Lib Dems were constantly mentioned in positive terms, while he was disparaging about the Tories whenever they came up

In his speech, Farage mentioned Paddy Ashdown as a sort of quasi-hero.

"He was that dynamic leader who understood until you've won a significant number of district council and county council seats, you weren't even in the race to win parliamentary election seats. That was the model he built during the 1990s that finally got them into coalition government in 2010. That's the model we're following."

There are two reasons why Farage is speaking about a former Lib Dem leader that way. One is that he is being honest here - the Lib Dems are the exact model to follow if you want to understand how to build an organised, insurgent force outside of the big two parties. I don’t doubt that Reform are studying what the Lib Dems are doing and have done in the past and are trying to knick everything they can from their way of on-the-ground, local campaigning.

The other is that Farage wants to “other” the Tories. Essentially, he knows that he isn’t trying to get any votes from the Lib Dems at the next general election. They are outside his reach. The people he wants to get are a certain section of Labour’s support, and crucially, most if not all of the Tory voters (or failing that, getting the liberal Tory types to vote Lib Dem instead). By talking up the Lib Dems, I have no doubt that Farage wants to create the following equation in voters’ minds:

“We are the patriotic, pro-Trump, pro-Brexit party. The Lib Dems are for the anti-Trump, anti-Brexit metropolitan liberal elites. Labour are a legacy party who are incapable of fixing Britain because the way they do things is outmoded. The Tories, however, are completely obsolete. They screwed up the country and would make it worse if they were put back in charge. There is no reason whatsoever to vote for them. They cannot win - only Reform can be either an opposition who could keep Sir Keir in check, or more likely, form a government that can finally change the country”.

Farage is helped greatly in his quest by the Conservative party’s continuing suicide mission. In a field of non-ideal candidates to be their next leader, they picked the worst one by a long stretch. They have decided to wallow in a navel-gazing slump, unconsciously assuming that Starmer will implode and they will waltz back into government by default. They are not taking Farage seriously enough, not by a long stretch.

I used to think there was no way Farage could ever become prime minister of Great Britain. After today, I’m far less sure that’s the case.