A year ago, Reform party aides found themselves in a cramped office in Victoria, London, bickering about chairs. ‘There weren’t enough seats to go around,’ recalls a staffer. These days there are no such issues. Leading in the polls and with five MPs in tow, Nigel Farage’s party has moved to Westminster’s Millbank Tower. This 1960s block peering over the Thames is where Tony Blair’s landslide victories were fought for and won; the new tenants are intent on dismantling most of his legacy as they plot a path to 10 Downing Street.
Look at any opinion survey and Reform is hard to dismiss. Having won 14 per cent of the vote in last year’s general election, the party consistently leads in the polls. When his supporters said last year that Farage would be the next prime minister, Westminster sniggered. Now, few establishment figures are laughing. ‘All we do is win,’ says an upbeat young aide. The party could come top in Cardiff Bay next year and finish third in Scotland. ‘Everyone is scrambling over themselves to do Wales,’ says another aide.
Its journey to power might start at Millbank Tower. The walls are covered with Reform banners and the slogan ‘Family, Community, Country’. Farage and party chairman Zia Yusuf have private offices, with around 40 desks for staff yet to be filled. Yusuf, a multi-millionaire businessman, has been charged with running the new operation. ‘He could have spent the rest of his life on a beach in Saint-Tropez after selling [his business], but decided to work 18-hour days for free to turn Reform into a winning machine,’ says a colleague. There is a push to professionalise, but Reform remains rough around edges. ‘There’s a room for smoking,’ explains one aide. ‘No one wants to go outside.’ ‘Everyone in Reform has some form of tobacco, whether it’s first-hand smoke, second-hand smoke or Zyn [nicotine pouches],’ says a colleague.
Yet for a party that could form the next government, surprisingly little is known about the main figures who make up Farage’s new gang. What would a Farage-led Downing Street look like? Where would the big ideas come from? Who would be the most powerful adviser? Where would the fault lines be? The next election may be far away but the key players – or, more accurately, key men – are becoming clear. They say a lot about what will happen if Reform can maintain its lead.
As the latest iteration of Farage’s chequered political career, Reform follows previous incarnations including Ukip and the Brexit party. ‘We’re very different to the Ukip days. We’re much more serious. The difference is 14-hour days in the office rather than an eight-hour lunch,’ explains a Reform figure (over a two-hour lunch).
The key players are becoming clear – and they say a lot about what will happen if Reform maintains its lead
Still, alcohol fuels the revolution. Near the office is the Marquis of Granby pub, which doubled as Ukip’s press office during the long march to Brexit. Once a month, members of ‘the tribe’ – Kippers, Reformers and Brexiteers – meet here over pints to talk of battles old and new. Former aide Gawain Towler says: ‘The tribe are the people who stood for elections and worked for parties run by Nigel Farage in the past 20 years. They are not always fans of Nigel but they do understand the need for him.’
The first group in Reform HQ are those in this tribe clustered around Farage – also known as ‘the lifers’. His spokesman is Dan Jukes, who joined Ukip as a teenager in 2012. He helped Farage defeat Alison Rose in the Coutts debanking scandal and finish third on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity… in 2023. ‘Dan is the person who is always by Nigel’s side,’ says an insider. ‘He is his praetorian guard but does it best with a double gin and tonic and a Marlboro Gold in his hand.’ Jukes – who is sustained by Pizza Express takeaways (‘He has it nearly every day for lunch,’ says a colleague) – was behind important strategic decisions such as allowing journalists access to Reform’s membership numbers over Christmas when the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused the party of fiddling the figures.
Then there’s ‘posh George’ Cottrell, who holds no official role but is ever-present, well-connected and willing to spend large amounts of money. ‘There is one rule: don’t ask what George does,’ says one figure. Cottrell made the news in 2017 after he was convicted for wire fraud and spent eight months in an American jail. While based these days in Montenegro – where Farage and others have paid regular visits – Cottrell is often by the Reform leader’s side for key events in the UK. ‘For Nigel, loyalty trumps most things,’ says an acquaintance. Jukes and Cottrell are among Farage’s closest confidantes.
Aaron Lobo worked with Farage at GB News and now orchestrates the razzmatazz of his events, such as Farage walking out to the music of Eminem. Next week another old timer will return to the fold too, with John Gill, who survived both the Brexit referendum and the infamous Ukip diversity carnival, joining as press officer.
The next group are the Tory defectors. Reform candidates are trained by Richard Murphy, a valued CCHQ veteran who switched sides in November. ‘Richard is our secret weapon,’ says a colleague. ‘When you walk down the street with him, all the Tories will stop to try to chat to him.’ Some 1,500 Reformers are now graduates of his ‘centre of excellence’ in which they learn the basics of campaigning. ‘They go back to their branches and train others who train others,’ says one insider. Other ex-Tories include Yusuf’s chief of staff Matthew MacKinnon, who ran the successful Vote Leave campaign in Wales. Ed Sumner is the party’s director of communications, having moved through the ranks quickly (he previously worked for Ukip and the Tories). There could be more to come with rumours in Reform circles that an ex-cabinet minister will be a star attraction at next month’s Midlands rally. ‘All I will say is we have announcements,’ says a staffer.
Such is the level of Tories defecting that one source claims new arrivals are ‘greeted with a sigh’
Then there is the newest addition: Gen Z men. Nearly all the backroom staff are under 35 and powered by the ‘fancy’ office coffee machine. There is Jack Anderton, who colleagues refer to as ‘the Matrix’ due to his penchant for dressing all in black. A teetotaller, he focuses on Farage’s TikTok and has helped him amass 1.2 million followers. While Farage remains resolutely analogue in his methods – preferring print-outs of emails, and phone calls to texts – he has happily devolved his social media presence to a group of young and digitally fluent men.
Charles Carlson, nephew of the American political commentator Tucker Carlson, has joined the press team as Sumner’s deputy. Farage has long been friendly with former Fox News host Carlson, and the presence of his nephew is a reminder in the office of the close ties between Reform UK and Donald Trump’s Republican party. ‘We all want to make things great again,’ says an aide.
A further four young staff are on the Reform ‘graduate scheme’, and more such hires are expected as the party tries to keep pace with its 215,000 members. ‘On hiring, we’re constantly playing catch-up,’ admits one. The hunt is on, too, for a new graphic designer. ‘It’s difficult to get creatives on the right.’ Those who are not so Gen Z as to abstain from alcohol are members of the Boisdale Club – following Farage in his patronage of the Belgravia establishment.
The other key block is the five members of parliament: Farage, Richard Tice, Lee Anderson, James McMurdock and Rupert Lowe. At present, Reform have few PMQs and are rarely called to speak on bills. The MPs have been frustrated by the way debates can change at short notice, in contrast to the more set routine of Brussels and Strasbourg. They co-ordinate responses to votes over email and messaging apps. Staff joke: ‘If WhatsApp goes down, our whipping operation is screwed.’ Each of the five must balance the late hours of Westminster with activists’ demands to tour the country. ‘Is sitting in the chamber, on the off-chance of being called, for three hours really the best use of Nigel’s time?’ asks one aide. ‘Every Labour MP represents 23,000 voters; every Reform MP represents 820,000 voters.’
Farage’s Commons office is kept busy by thousands of weekly emails from Reform supporters. His own room is largely bare of decoration. Tice prefers a second world war poster; Lowe has a cartoon of two men on a bike – one fat, one thin, representing the state and private sectors respectively. Among the five MPs, there are moments of tension – especially between Farage and Lowe. Both are veteran Eurosceptics from the mid-1990s; vintage Referendum leaflets show a 39-year-old Lowe urging Cotswold voters to ‘put country before party’. ‘They don’t see eye to eye on everything,’ admits Towler. ‘But they understand that to win they have to work together.’ Others complain that Lowe is not a team player and impossible to control. There was recent awkwardness at Tice’s plans to tax renewable energy; Lowe’s company, the mechanical contractor Lowe & Oliver, installs batteries for renewables projects.
On policy, some of the party’s old guard complain that Farage has ‘slinked to the left’ in his quest for power. Ben Habib, the former MEP, was axed as deputy leader in July and then quit Reform in November. ‘It’s virtually a completely different party,’ he says. ‘It’s a new party. Zia has come in and set up KPIs [key performance indicators] for the branches.’ For some, the professionalisation means the party has strayed from its roots. The truism is that the country is right on culture, left on politics. Yet Reform’s economic message is still unclear. Will Farage embrace Trumpian protectionism?
For now, the money continues to roll in. As honorary treasurer, property tycoon Nick Candy serves as the titular head of such efforts. However, aides say treasurer Charlton Edwards plays a key role. Candy’s wife Holly Valance, the ex-Neighbours star, was mooted as a candidate in Billericay last year and has been tipped by some to stand next time. ‘It would be good to have some more women,’ says one staffer. Selection of the right people is certainly seen as key for both the devolved and Westminster parliaments. Such is the level of Tories defecting that one source claims new arrivals are now ‘greeted with a sigh’.
Who are the Reform intellectuals? Keir Starmer has the Institute for Public Policy Research, Labour Together and even Maurice Glasman’s Blue Labour. Badenoch has Onward, chief of staff Lee Rowley and a phalanx of Tory greybeards. There is an effort to give Reform similar heft with its own thinktank, headed by former chief operations officer Jonathan Brown, to sketch out an agenda for Britain in 2029. There’s also former professor Matt Goodwin, who takes time out of his media career to offer advice. Yusuf has meanwhile been touring existing institutes, who are keen to connect after years of overlooking Farage. ‘We’ve never had so many invitations,’ says one gleeful aide.
Past Farage-centered outfits fell apart due to infighting. Already, Reform has had casualties. Towler departed in September, having been removed twice before. Celebrity magician Archie Manners, who made social media posts for Farage, is no longer on staff but instead working as a consultant. Millbank Tower is itself a reminder that flourishing causes can soon wilt: the ill-fated ‘People’s Vote’ campaign collapsed here ignominiously in 2019. But if there was ever a time to succeed, surely this must be it. ‘Are you on board for the ride?’ is a question asked of new staff. In Millbank Tower, the answer is an emphatic yes.
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