Growing up with Nigel Farage: inside Reform UK’s push for the next election

Jamie Gregory, Reform UK's Stalybridge and Hyde branch chair, in Tameside, Greater Manchester. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

It was the grand finale of Reform UK’s September conference and Nigel Farage had a serious message to deliver: it was time for Reform to “grow up” and professionalise.

He couldn’t do it alone, he told 4,000 hyped-up members who had paid £50 each to bask in his presence.