Reform UK discussion

[35B]

Until the general election, at least. If they lose, he'll cry a bit, make excuses, quite and then spend a year or two deciding whether to form another party.

If they win, he almost certainly won't remain as leader/PM for the full term. He'll step down and milk the "former PM" tag - and all the financial benefits that will bring - for the rest of his life.

I think that is to underestimate his political motivation. If money is the primary motive, then I'd expect him to start following Trump's playbook.

 

[Gloster]

One thing of interest is that Reform’s constitution gives the party leader a fixed five-year term, possibly a single one only. It is effectively impossible to sack the leader as to do requires half the MPs, but only if they have a hundred MPs, or half the members to demand this. Farage also appoints three of the six members of the party board and its chair.

The whole thing is somewhat opaque and the changes of February 2025, when ownership passed to the not-for-profit Reform 2025, seem only to have blurred who holds the real control. It does seem that Farage is aping Trump in using politics for profit, but then so do many, but at least most try to do a bit of politics by the by.

 

[SuspectUsual]

One thing of interest is that Reform’s constitution gives the party leader a fixed five-year term, possibly a single one only. It is effectively impossible to sack the leader as to do requires half the MPs, but only if they have a hundred MPs, or half the members to demand this. Farage also appoints three of the six members of the party board and its chair.

The whole thing is somewhat opaque and the changes of February 2025, when ownership passed to the not-for-profit Reform 2025, seem only to have blurred who holds the real control. It does seem that Farage is aping Trump in using politics for profit, but then so do many, but at least most try to do a bit of politics by the by.

The whole paragraph from the constitution says this:

The Party Leader’s term of office shall run for five years. This term may be extended for such time as may be deemed necessary upon the Board passing a motion by a simple majority to enable the Party Leader to stay in post in order to fight an imminent Election, but in such event the period of extension shall be for no more than one additional term. The Party Leader may be elected for successive term

So the term can be extended upon the board passing a motion with a simple majority. There are 7 people on the board including the Chair, and Farage directly appoints 4 of them. So effectively, if he wants to stay beyond five years he can and he will

 

[Railwaycat]

I think that is to underestimate his political motivation. If money is the primary motive, then I'd expect him to start following Trump's playbook.

I think money might be the primary motive for the whole Reform movement.

Get elected, share prices fall, you screw up, they fall even further - you call an election, you get thrown out, share prices rise. The gamble for Farage, Tice and friends is exactly when to buy and sell...

 

[35B]

I think money might be the primary motive for the whole Reform movement.

Get elected, share prices fall, you screw up, they fall even further - you call an election, you get thrown out, share prices rise. The gamble for Farage, Tice and friends is exactly when to buy and sell...

I think you underestimate them. What you describe is a fringe benefit, not an objective; they are ideologically committed

 

[Snow1964]

Reform are going to Court regarding postponement of local elections in some areas (where councils are due to be reorganised/ merged etc). Normally postponement is only permitted during national emergencies (war, covid etc)

Understand the hearing is Tuesday and aiming to get postponements declared not legal and undemocratic.

Of course Reform are doing fairly well in the polls currently (but might not be in year or two) so in their interest to hold elections this May and not postpone to 2027 or 2028

 

[Railwaycat]

I think you underestimate them. What you describe is a fringe benefit, not an objective; they are ideologically committed

Ideologically committed to what though? Making money for the few? (whilst saying that they want all of us to be better off). They certainly aren't communists.

 

[35B]

Ideologically committed to what though? Making money for the few? (whilst saying that they want all of us to be better off). They certainly aren't communists.

Indeed they aren't. But there are ideologies other than Communism, and people committed to ideologies who are not of the left.

They clearly believe in a strong but small state, with limited government involvement in day to day life and especially not in any way that regulates economic activity. They believe in "law and order", defined rather loosely, but with punitive treatment of those who cross the bounds they define. And they definitely believe in England for the English, but only where it's not inconvenient for them.

Dismissing them as chancers on the make is to underestimate them, and how nasty and dangerous they are - even they are a) chancers and b) on the make.

Their careful, long term, use of the "Broken Britain" narrative demonstrates the seriousness of their political ambitions.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Indeed they aren't. But there are ideologies other than Communism, and people committed to ideologies who are not of the left.

They clearly believe in a strong but small state, with limited government involvement in day to day life and especially not in any way that regulates economic activity. They believe in "law and order", defined rather loosely, but with punitive treatment of those who cross the bounds they define. And they definitely believe in England for the English, but only where it's not inconvenient for them.

Dismissing them as chancers on the make is to underestimate them, and how nasty and dangerous they are - even they are a) chancers and b) on the make.

Their careful, long term, use of the "Broken Britain" narrative demonstrates the seriousness of their political ambitions.

The whole "Broken Britain" narrative is to encourage people to vote for them by convincing them that you're going to somehow make their lives better. But Reform don't actually give a stuff about them, they're in it for themselves. Just pawns being manipulated. They're all in it for their wallet and their ego, very much like that lovely chap across the pond...

 

[35B]

The whole "Broken Britain" narrative is to encourage people to vote for them by convincing them that you're going to somehow make their lives better. But Reform don't actually give a stuff about them, they're in it for themselves. Just pawns being manipulated. They're all in it for their wallet and their ego, very much like that lovely chap across the pond...

There's more to them than the lovely chap across the pond - they're more like the court around King Don than DJT himself. And if you look at his court, there are some VERY unpleasant people indeed.

 

[muz379]

They clearly believe in a strong but small state, with limited government involvement in day to day life and especially not in any way that regulates economic activity. They believe in "law and order", defined rather loosely, but with punitive treatment of those who cross the bounds they define.

Indeed this is actually one of the contradictions that I find interesting, people like Richard Tice, Zia Yusuf etc believe in traditional small state conservatism, but actually a lot of the complaint of most of the Reform supporters I have spoken to/seen is not that the state is too big, but that they feel others are put first by the state and the reform supporters think that they and people like them should be put first instead.

So far I don't feel that in the councils they do run Reform have fully unleased their agenda yet, it will be interesting to see what they do if they take control of dozens more councils in May. Because ultimately small state means less services. And at local government level that does seem to be felt fairly quickly by people.

 

[Railwaycat]

Indeed they aren't. But there are ideologies other than Communism, and people committed to ideologies who are not of the left.

They clearly believe in a strong but small state, with limited government involvement in day to day life and especially not in any way that regulates economic activity. They believe in "law and order", defined rather loosely, but with punitive treatment of those who cross the bounds they define. And they definitely believe in England for the English, but only where it's not inconvenient for them.

Dismissing them as chancers on the make is to underestimate them, and how nasty and dangerous they are - even they are a) chancers and b) on the make.

Their careful, long term, use of the "Broken Britain" narrative demonstrates the seriousness of their political ambitions.

Believe me, I'm not dismissing them as chancers, I probably regard them as even more dangerous than you do - as a wildlife lover I see their relationship with the hunting, shooting and fishing community as potentially disastrous for wildlife, they're likely to tear up all the restrictions and rules, along with a lot of other 'restrictive' environmental regulations.

It's just that, at the end of the day, they stand to benefit from chaos. And they know it.

 

[PMH]

Indeed this is actually one of the contradictions that I find interesting, people like Richard Tice, Zia Yusuf etc believe in traditional small state conservatism, but actually a lot of the complaint of most of the Reform supporters I have spoken to/seen is not that the state is too big, but that they feel others are put first by the state and the reform supporters think that they and people like them should be put first instead.

So far I don't feel that in the councils they do run Reform have fully unleased their agenda yet, it will be interesting to see what they do if they take control of dozens more councils in May. Because ultimately small state means less services. And at local government level that does seem to be felt fairly quickly by people.

Their record at local authority level indicates that their populist agenda isn't deliverable without significant negative consequences that they haven't prepared their base for, and even their own elected reps understand this.

We've already shrunk councils significantly over the last 15 years. There aren't any further cuts that won't be immediately felt by their own voters.

 

[BAFRA77]

Nigel Farage apologises for 17 breaches of MPs’ code of conduct​

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/21/nigel-farage-apologises-breaches-mp-code-conduct

Nigel Farage has apologised for 17 breaches of the MPs’ code of conduct after failing to declare £380,000 of income on time, saying he is an “oddball” who does not do computers.

Invoking the Harry Redknapp Defence there...

 

[ainsworth74]

Their record at local authority level indicates that their populist agenda isn't deliverable without significant negative consequences that they haven't prepared their base for, and even their own elected reps understand this.

We've already shrunk councils significantly over the last 15 years. There aren't any further cuts that won't be immediately felt by their own voters.

Well yes that's the dark irony at the heart of Reform. They talk about local councils as if there's vast amounts of fat to be shed if only someone had a bit of backbone. But fundamentally there just isn't. I'm sure there's probably still some efficiencies to be made somewhere here and there but we're talking rounding errors in the grand scheme of things. Any cuts that were 'easy' or at least relatively non-controversial have been made. Anything that's left is either a statutory duty (like social care and bin collections) or has either been ditched or cut to the bone (think library services, garden waste collections, fireworks displays, etc). Even a lot of the statutory duty spending has been slashed. Why else do we think bin collection frequencies have been reduced? Or why the roads are a pothole riddled mess in many council areas?

There is precious little wiggle room left and the only things left to cut they either cannot cut legally or will just mean services vanish.

But that's not the yarn that Reform are spinning to their base and so when Reform councillors meet budgetary reality it all starts to come a little unstuck. Hence why, just like everywhere else, Reform councils are putting up Council Tax by the maximum they are allowed to. Because they need ever penny they can get their hands on just to keep the lights on.

Of course this isn't helped by the fact that people don't understand what their Council's actually do, how their funded and how much money is actually involved. Meaning you get nonsense stories like this one reported earlier in the thread:

More from Kent County Council. KentOnline is reporting this, based on an article from the Sun (rather than their own journalism), with a rather clickbait-y headline.

Reform’s Doge team reveals Kent County Council spent more than £24,000 on trampolining, bowling and cinema for illegal migrants​

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/n...aims-kcc-spent-thousands-on-tv-licenc-325858/



As you would expect, the comments on my local Facebook residents group regarding this story are absolutely vile. I’ve reported some of the comments because some are calling for the death of the migrants.

One commenter has suggested that the leisure trips are for unaccompanied children, but I have not seen any evidence for this. Does anyone know if this is the case?

Which as I noted at the time wasn't even a rounding error:

More seriously I would note that according to Kent County Council's website their budget for 2025/26 is £2.6bn (excluding schools spending). So the £24,000 they spent on giving some people a nice trip to a bowling alley and whatnot is 0.00092% of the council's budget. So, er, I'm not entirely convinced it even counts as a rounding error in their budget to be quite honest...

They will run into the same issue on the national level if they do win power. But on steroids as their voter base benefit from large amounts of state services (like the NHS, welfare benefits including state pensions, etc etc) but there is precious little fat to cut in the UK budget either. So once they've gotten rid of the asylum seekers they'll save around £5bn per year (based on this NAO report down on page 5) which is basically chicken feed when the total UK Government spending is around £1,200bn per year. So that £5bn (which I do accept is still a lot of money!) will not really go very far...

So how to deliver the promises (or insinuated promises) that their base is expecting without slashing the very same services that their voters rely on?

 

[ainsworth74]

Nigel Farage apologises for 17 breaches of MPs’ code of conduct​

Invoking the Harry Redknapp Defence there...

Imagine if it was any other Labour MP or Labour front bencher? The Mail, Telegraph, Reform, GB News, etc wouldn't rest until they'd resigned as an MP never mind resigned from their front bench role! But because it's Nigel Farage silence will reign...

 

[PMH]

Well yes that's the dark irony at the heart of Reform. They talk about local councils as if there's vast amounts of fat to be shed if only someone had a bit of backbone. But fundamentally there just isn't. I'm sure there's probably still some efficiencies to be made somewhere here and there but we're talking rounding errors in the grand scheme of things. Any cuts that were 'easy' or at least relatively non-controversial have been made. Anything that's left is either a statutory duty (like social care and bin collections) or has either been ditched or cut to the bone (think library services, garden waste collections, fireworks displays, etc). Even a lot of the statutory duty spending has been slashed. Why else do we think bin collection frequencies have been reduced? Or why the roads are a pothole riddled mess in many council areas?

There is precious little wiggle room left and the only things left to cut they either cannot cut legally or will just mean services vanish.

But that's not the yarn that Reform are spinning to their base and so when Reform councillors meet budgetary reality it all starts to come a little unstuck. Hence why, just like everywhere else, Reform councils are putting up Council Tax by the maximum they are allowed to. Because they need ever penny they can get their hands on just to keep the lights on.

Of course this isn't helped by the fact that people don't understand what their Council's actually do, how their funded and how much money is actually involved. Meaning you get nonsense stories like this one reported earlier in the thread:


Which as I noted at the time wasn't even a rounding error:


They will run into the same issue on the national level if they do win power. But on steroids as their voter base benefit from large amounts of state services (like the NHS, welfare benefits including state pensions, etc etc) but there is precious little fat to cut in the UK budget either. So once they've gotten rid of the asylum seekers they'll save around £5bn per year (based on this NAO report down on page 5) which is basically chicken feed when the total UK Government spending is around £1,200bn per year. So that £5bn (which I do accept is still a lot of money!) will not really go very far...

So how to deliver the promises (or insinuated promises) that their base is expecting without slashing the very same services that their voters rely on?

Agree 100%, and would add that my experience of Reform voters is of people with less than average uinderstanding, or even curiousity, about what different tiers of government do and how they are funded. Guys I know well would criticise their county council for bin collection frequency, when it was a district council responsibility, and vice versa when it came to potholes/road gritting for eg. Then from such a position of ignorance they'd jump to the conclusion that all it needed was sleeves-rolled up common sense and it'd all be sorted.

And like you say, what their base want is more public spending - more bin collections, more potholes filled, more police, increases in health and education. And all to be done while cutting taxes. If it could've been done we wouldn't be in the bind we currently are.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jan 2026 ==

Imagine if it was any other Labour MP or Labour front bencher? The Mail, Telegraph, Reform, GB News, etc wouldn't rest until they'd resigned as an MP never mind resigned from their front bench role! But because it's Nigel Farage silence will reign...

That's the galling thing. The press has obviously always been partisan, but I can never remember it being to this extent. Through work I get access to most UK papers, and any prominent articles pop-up on our intranet - those outlets have stopped even trying to hide their allegiances.

 

[greatkingrat]

Imagine if it was any other Labour MP or Labour front bencher? The Mail, Telegraph, Reform, GB News, etc wouldn't rest until they'd resigned as an MP never mind resigned from their front bench role! But because it's Nigel Farage silence will reign...

The double standards work both ways. How many of the people criticizing Farage were calling on Starmer to resign when he committed the same offence?

 

[martin butler]

The media, or more to the point, the right wing owners and pressure groups won't stop until Farage is PM, and we have our own mini trump in place, to do their bidding, including ICE type clamp downs on people they don't like. such as immigrants, Muslims, and LBGT

 

[ainsworth74]

The double standards work both ways. How many of the people criticizing Farage were calling on Starmer to resign when he committed the same offence?

Starmer didn't declare £380k of income on time? I honestly missed that if that's the case.

 

[JamesT]

Starmer didn't declare £380k of income on time? I honestly missed that if that's the case.

Depending on how much you believe the donkey sanctuary was worth, he made that much profit on selling that. As the Guardian article notes, Starmer had 8 instances of failing to declare income, but doesn't enumerate the value of those.

 

[Harpo]

Imagine if it was any other Labour MP or Labour front bencher? The Mail, Telegraph, Reform, GB News, etc wouldn't rest until they'd resigned as an MP never mind resigned from their front bench role! But because it's Nigel Farage silence will reign...

Imagine also if any Labour MP’s side hustles paid nearly ten times the national average wage.

 

[Cdd89]

So how to deliver the promises (or insinuated promises) that their base is expecting without slashing the very same services that their voters rely on?

In my view they will have to slash these services. As you note, this will anger as many of their voters as it pleases, but it is strategically better than not doing nothing which would annoy 100% of their voters.

 

[35B]

In my view they will have to slash these services. As you note, this will anger as many of their voters as it pleases, but it is strategically better than not doing nothing which would annoy 100% of their voters.

No, they won’t. They’ll find 1001 excuses not to do so, which will all be someone else’s fault and never be allowed to shine a light on the falsity of their prospectus.

The point is not to fix a problem but to be able to say there’s a miracle cure somewhere around the corner.

The key fictional character to explain this is the Wizard of Oz - a small humbug of a man made great by his megaphone and shrivelled when the magic was revealed.

 

[Lewisham2221]

No, they won’t. They’ll find 1001 excuses not to do so, which will all be someone else’s fault and never be allowed to shine a light on the falsity of their prospectus.

The point is not to fix a problem but to be able to say there’s a miracle cure somewhere around the corner.

The key fictional character to explain this is the Wizard of Oz - a small humbug of a man made great by his megaphone and shrivelled when the magic was revealed.

Precisely this. See Brexit. Brexit was (allegedly ) going to be this wonderful thing that fixed all our problems. Brexit happened. Nothing improved. Things got worse. Oh, but that's because they didn't do this, they wouldn't let us do that, woke people, lefties, blah blah blah...

It'll be the same with Reform local authorities. Oh, we couldn't do that because the lefties Labour government wouldn't give us the money, oh, we couldn't stop doing that because there's some pesky woke law/legislation that says we have to do it. Oh, that didn't happen because blah blah red tape blah blah bureaucracy. And it'll be exactly the same if Reform win a general election - okay, they'll probably do a few anti-woke things to pacify their supporters, but they'll achieve absolutely nothing that tangibly improves life or standards or finances etc for the ordinary person - and that will all be someone elses fault.

 

[Class73Electro]

Precisely this. See Brexit. Brexit was (allegedly ) going to be this wonderful thing that fixed all our problems. Brexit happened. Nothing improved. Things got worse. Oh, but that's because they didn't do this, they wouldn't let us do that, woke people, lefties, blah blah blah...

It'll be the same with Reform local authorities. Oh, we couldn't do that because the lefties Labour government wouldn't give us the money, oh, we couldn't stop doing that because there's some pesky woke law/legislation that says we have to do it. Oh, that didn't happen because blah blah red tape blah blah bureaucracy. And it'll be exactly the same if Reform win a general election - okay, they'll probably do a few anti-woke things to pacify their supporters, but they'll achieve absolutely nothing that tangibly improves life or standards or finances etc for the ordinary person - and that will all be someone elses fault.

You forgot Human Rights - All the problems are due to these weird things called Human Rights...

 

[Harpo]

You forgot Human Rights - All the problems are due to these weird things called Human Rights...

And the millions spent (or perhaps not after all) on all things inclusive.

 

[jon0844]

You forgot Human Rights - All the problems are due to these weird things called Human Rights...

That's the most important one. They need rid of that to hope to do anywhere near as much as what they're doing in the USA right now.

And to convince people to give up their own rights, they need to be convinced that those rights are being abused by the people they don't like.

 

[Class73Electro]

OK this is what someone said on a FB comment to the local Elections (*Give or take - I didn't right it down!)

Come on Reform! Now, [Local MP - Tory], defect!

I mean... I'm still trying to get my head around it! You want Reform... but you want your Tory MP to be that Reform MP... Might as well vote Tory surely?!

 

[dosxuk]

You want Reform... but you want your Tory MP to be that Reform MP... Might as well vote Tory surely?!

No, they want a Reform MP, but without all that hassle of actually having to win an election.