This year’s Reform UK conference has all the hallmarks of many of the party’s other events that came before it. Bold promises, a heavily utilised bar that serves booze from 10am, expensive merchandise that members go wild for, and – of course – pyrotechnics.
But there was something different about this year’s conference. There was a palpable sense that Nigel Farage really could be Britain’s next prime minister.
It helped Reform that the conference took place on a day where the government looked even more chaotic than normal, with Angela Rayner’s resignation and the ensuing government reshuffle. Nigel Farage immediately seized on the drama, bringing his speech forward by three hours to make sure he could respond to the news on the front foot.
The deputy prime minister’s resignation shows this government is “as bad – if not worse – than the one that went before”, he told the conference, announcing the creation of a new “department for preparing for government” ahead of what he claimed would be a 2027 general election.
The membership also adopted this spirit, with a cheer going up from among party activists after the news about the deputy prime minister broke on the centrally placed GB News stand.
“They’re almost finished,” one Reform member said of the Labour government. “We’ll be in power in a year,” said another optimistically.
Clearly, the chaos outside the conference has only fuelled a growing sense of optimism of the people here at the NEC.
Meanwhile, the industry presence at this year's Reform conference has also ramped up - a clear sign that business is taking the party more seriously as it surges in the polls.
While last year saw stands manned by a handful of fairly niche companies, this year's conference has a somewhat larger presence. Notably, there's a JCB tractor stand, a company owned by Lord Bamford - who has historically been a major Tory donor and a close ally of Boris Johnson. There are also a significant number of lobbyists milling about.
It’s clear that corporate Britain has arrived to find out what this party is actually like – but unfortunately for Reform, they’re not yet convinced.
“We can feel the enthusiasm. We can see that they want power. But they have no policies. We have no idea what they’re going to do and we have no idea how they’ll pay for it”, one corporate lobbyist told The Independent – summing up the feeling of many others who cast doubt over Nigel Farage’s readiness for the keys to No 10.
While many members were enthusiastic, others shared the sentiment of the lobbyists expressing concern about Farage’s readiness for government. Some even expressed concern about his promise to stop the boats within two weeks.
One Reform backer, Terry Washington, pointed to the similarities between Farage and Donald Trump after the US president promised to stop the war in Ukraine on day one of his second presidency.
“I understand the message is that he takes it seriously and he wants to solve the problem. But that whole timeline, I don’t pay any attention to that. I think that’s just rhetoric. Can he do it in two weeks? Probably not”, he said.
But bold timelines aren’t the only thing Reform’s conference shares with Trump. The entire conference has the energy of a MAGA tribute act.
At one point, Andrea Jenkyns commanded party activists to “stand up and be proud to be the party of the brave”. In an episode that was almost cult-like in nature, she then got members to chant “Nigel Farage will be prime minister”, before closing off her address by shouting - to wild applause - “Reform will save Britain”.
From the exuberant merchandise, including £40 football shirts with Nigel Farage’s name on it, to the theatrics of the stadium-style main stage, which saw the Reform leader enter to a song called ‘Street Rev Anthem’ with smoke canons and a sparklers beaming from the floor. The overlaps with Trump’s political operation in the US were clear.
But although the main stage show was seamless, the wider conference operation was perhaps a metaphor for Reform’s readiness for government.
At first glance, it looked like a bigger and better conference than they’ve done before. But look closer and it was creaking at the seams.
At the start of the day, there were hundreds of people queuing en masse outside the conference, with no semblance of order or a system for separating out different types of pass holders. The press pen was severely under-resourced, with an ongoing battle to find usable chairs unfolding throughout the afternoon. At one point in the day, almost apocalyptically, it took trips to four different food stands to find someone that hadn’t run out of bottled water.
It had all the hallmarks of a conference of a major political party, and yet, the infrastructure hadn’t ramped up to match.
Nigel Farage says he wants an election within two years, and his party truly believes they are the answer to Britain’s problems. But like their conference queuing system, Reform UK has a very long way to go.
