Eminem blares through the speakers… “Guess who’s back, back again?”… Nigel Farage is mouthing the words as he takes the stage… “Cause we need a little controversy”… The crowd is clapping to the beat and lights are flashing… “Cause it feels so empty without me”…
It’s officially party conference season in the United Kingom, conventions that sit somewhere between political cult gatherings and corporate getaways. This weekend was the turn of far-right Reform UK, with the event promoted as the dawn of a new age, the next step for an upstart party after a successful general election.
As the doors of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre opened early morning on Friday, pints were poured as roughly 4,000 members turned out throughout the day. Reform leader Farage was tweeting: “Ain’t no party like the Reform party!”
There was a certain American vibe, perhaps influenced by Farage’s numerous appearances at the Republican National Convention, as several red MAGA hats and “I Love Donald Trump” t-shirts were spotted by Politico. The BBC went so far as to say it was a “Trump-style rally” with “Let’s Make Britain Great” baseball caps also glimpsed.
Members could attend panels on fringe stages, where soldier-turned-TV-personality Ant Middleton warned of “civil unrest” if British culture was not prioritised, and free market think tank the Adam Smith Institute hosted “The Bully State: How Nanny is taking over Britain”, taking aim at sugar taxes and a generational smoking ban.
The main stage played host to a series of headline speakers, or in this case, the five Reform MPs. Lee Anderson, former chairman of the Conservative Party, ripped up his BBC TV licence bill on stage to cheers and screams from the audience. Multi-millionaire businessman and MP Rupert Lowe cautioned people about the threat of “subversive forces”, which he proceeded to list, naming the European Union, World Economic Forum, the United Nations, billionaires and the World Health Organization, as well as “crony capitalism, Tony Blair’s socialist dream, or other malign forces”.
As party leader, Farage used his keynote speech to focus on plans to “professionalise” Reform by changing its structure. Previously the Brexit Party, Reform has been a business-that-is-a-political-party, a private limited company, since 2018. The day before the conference, Farage announced he was giving up majority shares in the party, thereby relinquishing “control of the company and indeed of the overall control of the party”.
The overhaul means members will be able to vote on policy motions for the first time and could hold a no-confidence vote to remove the leader. It’s already apparent that Reform’s show of strength in the last general election — it may have only won five MPs but received roughly 4 million votes nationwide — has pushed the right-wing party to take itself more seriously.
Closing out the conference, Farage returned to the stage to blaring music, a double-decker bus used as seating and large screens showing the turquoise party logo. Attendees danced at a gala reception, singing an upbeat “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” with a grinning Farage on stage before he left the festivities, at 10 pm, reportedly looking “sober and serious”.
The Reform leader said the party had “learnt about organisation”, and that all this democratising —with building-block plans to gain members, raise funds and win elections — could get Reform through to the next general election due in 2029.
It is “optimism”, he said, that sums up Reform. Optimism is the message members will take forward now that they have grown into a fully professionalised organisation with big plans for Farage in No.10 Downing Street.
“The sky is the limit for this party,” he said.
