As soon as Nigel Farage wrote to Keir Starmer demanding that the prime minister allow him to make some nominations to the House of Lords, I reached for my well-thumbed copy of Reform’s “contract” with the voters at the last election.
In its first 100 days, the document says, a Reform government would start to “replace the crony-filled House of Lords with a much smaller, more democratic second chamber”.
It is easy to mock, so let us enjoy the contrast between Farage’s high-minded manifesto promises and his demand that some of his cronies should join all the other cronies in the upper house.
Let us, in particular, enjoy the next two sentences in Reform’s manifesto. Readers wanting to know how this “more democratic” chamber might be constituted are dismissed briskly: “Structure to be debated”. The structure of a more democratic second chamber has been debated for more than 100 years; it seems unlikely that anything will be decided in 100 days.
Then there is this gem: “Immediate end of political appointees”. As St Augustine didn’t quite say, Lord make it immediate, but not yet. Before the arrival of a Reform government and the immediate end of political appointees, Farage would like the prime minister to ennoble some political appointees on his behalf.
It is not fair, the Reform leader says in his letter, that “the Greens, DUP, Plaid Cymru and UUP have 13 peers between them, but Reform UK has none”. The Scottish National Party also has none, but that is because it disagrees with the House of Lords and means it. Reform, on the other hand, disagrees with the House of Lords but thinks it is a “democratic disparity” – not that Britain has an appointed upper house, but that Reform isn’t in it.
It is not as if Farage’s parties have never had representatives in the Lords. Malcolm Pearson, a former leader of the UK Independence Party, is still a member, sitting as a non-affiliated peer. David Stevens, former chair of United Newspapers when it owned the Daily Express, was also Ukip and is now non-affiliated. Claire Fox, the former Brexit Party MEP, is also a non-affiliated peer.
Pearson and Stevens were originally Conservative peers but switched, whereas Fox was nominated by Boris Johnson as a way of mischievously celebrating Britain’s departure from the EU.
But Farage hasn’t been able to hold onto any of them and now wants to put some of his current allies in the Lords. The Times lists Ann Widdecombe, Nick Candy and Zia Yusuf as possible candidates.
It is not going to happen. “This is the same Nigel Farage that called for the abolition of the House of Lords and now wants to fill it with his cronies,” said John Healey, the defence secretary, this morning. “I’m not sure that parliament is going to be benefiting from more Putin apologists like Nigel Farage.”
The constitutional position is simple: nominations to the Lords are a matter for the Crown, as advised by the prime minister. The monarch is a cypher; Keir Starmer is the sole decision-maker. He may choose to invite other party leaders to make nominations, but that is entirely up to him.
David Cameron and Boris Johnson, when they were going through green phases, even allowed the Green Party of England and Wales to nominate – Jenny Jones in 2013 and Natalie Bennett in 2019. But it is up to the prime minister, who usually allows him or herself to be fettered by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission – although Johnson overruled it when it advised against making Peter Cruddas, the Tory former treasurer, a peer.
It might be tempting for Starmer to agree to Farage’s request. It would make it harder for Farage to present himself as the doughty outsider, locked out of the establishment. It would mean that Reform had more public representatives and therefore more chances that one or more of them would embarrass the party. And it would be the responsible thing to do, given that there is a real chance that Farage might soon be prime minister: he ought then to have some back-up in the House of Lords.
But it is not going to happen, and Farage knows it is not going to happen. His letter is a classic August news story, designed to get attention and to drive home the point that Reform, the most popular party in the country, is treated as unrespectable by the establishment parties.
At a time when anti-government and anti-establishment feeling is running high, Farage’s status as an outsider is a priceless asset to him.
