Nigel Farage seeks serious tone at Reform UK conference after summer controversies

LONDON — Nigel Farage had a silly summer squaring off against Count Binface. Now he wants to get serious.

The Reform UK leader will use his annual party conference, kicking off in Birmingham Thursday, to attempt to move on from a by-election dominated by novelty candidates and questions over his finances. He will try to signal how he would govern if he wins power at the next U.K. general election.

The leader and his four top lieutenants will use their speeches in Britain’s second-largest city to unveil what one senior party official described as “key pledges” for the first 100 days of a Farage premiership.

“It will be a very serious tone this conference,” the official — granted anonymity to discuss internal planning — said.

That’s the hope anyway, because public infighting, questions over undeclared donations, and splits on the right of British politics have dogged Farage’s summer — and could still overshadow proceedings.

Bardella and Farage show

Reform says the conference will be the party’s biggest yet — up by 2,000 attendees on last year, according to internal figures.

They’re boasting big business attendance and a diplomatic presence, too. Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right French party National Rally, will provide a set-piece attraction. Farage and Bardella have bonded over tackling small boat crossings in the Channel — the major public grievance that has fueled Reform’s success.

But Farage knows this event must offer more than a shift in tone. Not only has his party’s polling slumped as Labour rebounds after the ousting of Keir Starmer, but Farage is suffering a severe dent to his personal figures too.

A YouGov survey released this week suggests his net favorability rating has fallen from its peak of -27 last summer to -44. Just 19 percent of Brits now see him as a prime minister-in-waiting — down seven points since June, before he called his “people versus the establishment” by-election in Clacton.

The party knows looking credible is key. That’s why Farage will be leading the pledge-making to the public, culminating in a policy-laced but unscripted speech on Friday. Robert Jenrick, Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice — his spokespeople for the Treasury, home affairs and business briefs, respectively — will be making them too.

“It will be very serious about the problems the country faces and how we intend to fix them in the first 100 days,” the official cited above said.

Some in Reform had hoped the conference would mark the moment Farage announced an expanded front bench. Key posts like health and defense remain unfilled, despite Farage trying to demonstrate the party is no one-man band. But the party will hold off until after the Birmingham jamboree is over, instead announcing “a couple of new people” later this month and in October, according to the official.

Summer of scrutiny

Farage’s return to the limelight, which he has uncharacteristically dodged ever since his re-election in Clacton, began on Wednesday, with an interview with the BBC’s political editor.

The Reform leader has faced repeated questions over a £5 million donation from crypto-entrepreneur Christopher Harborne, as well as support from convicted fraudster George Cottrell.

Farage continued to insist Wednesday that he has “done nothing wrong” in not declaring the support in the run-up to the 2024 general election. He argued that the intense scrutiny of Reform’s funding is down to an “establishment” stitch-up, and railed against living in a “complainants’ society.” He compared his situation to the investigations faced by fellow “outsider” Donald Trump.

But Farage’s victory in Clacton last month served to restart the parliamentary standards commissioner’s investigation into the Harborne funding. Farage himself suggested that an interview with the investigator is on the horizon — and a sanction could well trigger another by-election for the Reform leader. He is keen to press the need to fund personal security for politicians in a dangerous world.

Reform’s conference opens Thursday with a day of trying to charm businesses, while the main event gets underway Friday.

Underlining the threat that Farage argues politicians now face, the conference will start with a tribute to Ann Widdecombe, the 78-year-old Reform spokesperson killed in her own home in July.

Restore a ‘shiny object’

Reform top brass seems keen to avoid talking about one elephant in the room: Restore Britain.

The right-wing splinter group, formed by sacked Reform MP Rupert Lowe, has been sucking small but significant support from Farage’s right flank in recent months.

Restore is talked of derisively as a “statistical anomaly” inside Reform, but tackling the threat is likely to be a topic of conversation in the conference center. “New shiny objects often attract support. That’s the way human beings are,” Farage dismissively told the BBC Wednesday, in an indication he believes support for Lowe’s outfit could tail off.

For Restore’s part, a disruptive intervention this week seems unlikely. “Let’s let them fight among themselves,” said one well-connected figure in Restore circles.

Indeed, the plea for unity that Farage wrapped last year’s conference with will be put to the test again in Birmingham. The party goes into this conference with open disagreement in its ranks.

Farage this summer publicly reprimanded his home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, for calling a Conservative former defense secretary a “traitor” in a series of angry online arguments. Reform then suspended political commentator Tim Montgomerie for criticizing senior party figures — including Yusuf.

Trade unions meanwhile look unlikely to leap at Farage’s call to ditch their historic ties with Labour and attend Reform’s conference. “I don’t think any unions are seriously going to take up his invitation to attend Reform conference,” predicted one union leader.

But for all the sniggering at Farage’s fight with Binface this summer, there are more optimistic takes inside the party about the resilience of its base.

Farage not only saw increased support in Clacton — but Reform’s polling is not collapsing in the face of its most intense scrutiny to date.