It was to a packed-out auditorium that Nigel Farage announced his party’s mayoral candidate for Hull and East Yorkshire on Thursday night. Reform pulled out all the stops for its reveal of former Olympic boxer and gold medallist Luke Campbell, from sparkler firework lights to a mocked-up boxing ring. ‘The set up is immense,’ one aide boasted. And judging by the crowd’s roars at the big unveiling, they thought so too.
Campbell is, in many ways, a perfect candidate for Reform. The 37-year-old Hull-born international boxer is an inspiration for other young men who have grown up without much, and is standing for office in an area he knows well. His selection marks a clear deviation from the party’s choice of paper candidates it fielded at the general election. And, despite his numerous accolades, it would be a far cry to describe Campbell as egotistical. He may have performed on the sporting world stage before, but during last night’s speech the Reform supporters of Hull – a mixed crowd of varying ages reflective of the city’s 91 per cent white population – Campbell appeared slightly overwhelmed. Just a normal guy who happened to find himself on a stage addressing thousands.
‘I’m not going to stand on the stage and pretend I’m a politician, because I’m certainly not,’ the ex-Olympian admitted to his audience. ‘The mayor’s role for me isn’t about playing politics. It’s about being a voice for Hull and East Yorkshire, about being a voice for the people. It’s about putting the people first. You lot inspired me. You lot gave everything to me. This city made me. It gave me grit, it gave me heart and it gave me spirit. Now it’s my turn to give it back.’
It’s with his earnest, straightforward style that Campbell will endear voters to him. Certainly on the policy front, the Reform mayoral candidate is much less well-versed – clear that he will let the people of Hull guide him rather than the other way around – but perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise, given he was only approached about the job six weeks ago. Reform insists the boxer is a fully signed-up member, although he only joined the party at the start of 2025. Will that matter to voters in the Hull and East Yorkshire who have found themselves turned off from other parties? Campbell’s lack of political nous could serve him well: Brits are increasingly fed up with ‘men-in-suits’ politicians and Campbell’s honesty about what he does and doesn’t know will appeal as refreshing.
Supporters in the hall seemed more concerned with principle over policy. Admitting that Reform ‘don’t always get the best reputation’, Councillor Maria Bowtell invited the crowd to call out what they were proud of the party for. ‘Patriotism!’ came a cry from the front, as cheers rang out across the room. Farage leaned into this when he appeared – calling for the return of ‘decent values and standards’ to Britain, before declaring: ‘A total change of culture and thought is needed across everything in this country.’
Turning on his opponents, Farage set out the familiar charges: the Tories are liars while Labour is the party of double standards. ‘I think that the 2019-2024 Conservative government goes down perhaps as the most disappointing, the most dishonest, government we’ve ever had in the history of our nation!’ he jibed. Hitting out at the latest development in the Mike Amesbury case – the ex-Labour MP caught punching a man received a suspended sentence on appeal – Farage fumed: ‘I guess that’s because he’s part of the Labour Party and part of the ruling class. And we saw it after the riots last summer, different groups of people being treated differently. That is not what this country is all about. I will not live with two tier policing and two tier justice.’ Cue the applause.
As Katy Balls and James Heale write in this week’s Spectator, look at any opinion survey and Reform is hard to dismiss. At last year’s general election, Reform UK came second to Labour in the three Hull constituencies – taking almost a third of the vote in Hull East. While it may be a Labour area on paper, recent polling has shown Reform topping Labour among Brits and leading the party of government by two points in one YouGov survey. The May elections will be Starmer’s first big electoral test as Prime Minister – and a test of whether Reform’s positive polling will translate into further victories at the ballot box. As voters grow tired of corporate politicians and mainstream parties, Campbell’s straightforward manner combined with his local celebrity status could stand him with a chance to become the first mayor of Hull and Yorkshire East. As Farage punned yesterday, it would be a ‘knock-out’ result.
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