Nigel Farage signed off with fireworks, streamers and balloons (Picture: Benjamin Cremel/AFP)
Reform UK has rounded off the first day of its conference with balloons and pyrotechnics, capping a rambunctious series of speeches from party bigwigs.
It’s a big moment for the four-year old outfit once known as the Brexit Party, with leader Nigel Farage announcing it had finally ‘come of age’.
After coming third at the July 4 General Election in terms of total number of votes, Reform leapt from having one defector MP in the House of Commons to five elected ones – with varying levels of experience.
Metro.co.uk was sitting in the middle of the energetic crowd at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham. Here’s what we found out.
Reform UK loves a queue
Attendees grumbled about the huge queue to get in, due to extensive security checks (Picture: Craig Munro)
The first indication we had found the right site was the enormous queue that had formed at the entrance to the NEC ahead of opening at 10am.
One man said he felt like the supporters were being ‘treated like dirt’ – not by the party, but by the people who run the venue. ‘I think we all know why,’ he added.
At lunchtime, another huge queue formed at the sole food outlet inside the venue.
This disruption was probably inevitable: there were around 4,000 attendees, we were told, and none of them was allowed out to visit a nearby food court for security reasons.
However, the hold-up provided an opportunity to chat with the man in front. He turned out to be a rare political animal: a former Liberal Democrat who had switched to Reform.
The final straw was the Lib Dems’ support for reversing Brexit, he said, and he was now keen to see Nigel Farage in No 10. Quite the journey.
Becoming an MP ruined James McMurdock’s life
James McMurdock didn’t hide his bewilderment at getting elected (Picture: Ioannis Alexopoulos/Getty Images)
It was an interesting note to kick off the conference.
Our first speaker was James McMurdock, who became one of Reform’s five MPs just two months after joining the party.
McMurdock was introduced by host (and GB News presenter) David Bull with an anecdote involving Nigel Farage apologising to the rookie for getting him elected and ‘ruining his life’.
‘David is absolutely right, this has ruined my life,’ the MP declared right at the beginning of his 15-minute speech.
He quickly added: ‘But I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
It set a tone of grievance than ran through much of the day. Despite frequent references to a party atmosphere, the picture of the UK painted on the stage by every speaker was bleak.
Some appeared to feel more comfortable riling the crowd up into booing and crying ‘shame!’ than aiming for applause.
Lee Anderson might have a plan for after parliament
Lee Anderson played to the crowd by ripping up a letter from BBC Television Licencing (Picture: Reuters)
Lee Anderson was Reform UK’s first MP, defecting from the Conservatives in spring, and Deputy Leader Richard Tice was full of gratitude for his help in introducing the others to Westminster.
But Anderson’s own speech was almost reminiscent of a stand-up comedy set, complete with over-the-top digs at typical targets such as net zero, the trans community, Just Stop Oil, Sadiq Khan and Black Lives Matter.
There were a few bold claims. An example: he stated as fact that the UK was responsible for 51% of all the inventions in the past 1,000 years.
How do we know? What counts as an invention? Surely the UK hasn’t existed for the past 1,000 years? No matter, it got delighted applause. There was a similar reaction when he theatrically tore up a BBC licence fee reminder letter.
As if to underscore the sense of a stand-up routine, Anderson pointed out Jim Davidson on the top deck of a Reform UK bus that had been parked at the side of the stage.
You can’t accuse Reform of a lack of ambition
Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform, has been drafted in to ‘professionalise’ the party (Picture: Reform)
They may have only five MPs after struggling with the UK Parliament’s first-past-the-post electoral system – the Lib Dems got 72 with fewer votes – but the party is aiming high.
Every speaker said they believed Nigel Farage could be the next British prime minister. Every speaker, that is, except Nigel Farage.
He emphasised the importance of local elections coming up next year, which will demonstrate how strong Reform is at a grassroots level. Beyond that, elections to the Welsh and Scottish parliaments will test the party’s popularity around the UK.
If it all goes to plan, its candidates in those smaller races will tee up for massive success at the next General Election due in 2029.
How massive could that success be? Former Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe put a number on it: 300 MPs, or a sixty-fold increase in their current numbers.
Keir Starmer’s taste for freebies is ripe for ridicule
Farage was keen to poke fun at the PM over his gifts (Picture: Reuters)
After swaggering from the back of the hall to the strains of Eminem’s Without Me, Nigel Farage began his speech with a quick prod at the prime minister.
He took a pair of glasses out of his pocket and quickly popped them on. The crowd could already see where this was going.
‘Do you like them?’ he asked. ‘Very expensive, but I bought them myself.’
The line played pretty well in the room. However, the reaction might have been tempered by the fact Farage’s deputy Richard Tice had made a very similar joke just a few minutes before.
Telling the crowd he ‘must declare an interest’, Tice announced: ‘I have paid for my own suit.’
Another potential issue with Farage’s line about the glasses: as one reporter pointed out in a media huddle later in the night, he has accepted £30,000 in flight tickets to the US.
His response: ‘They’re not really gifts, are they? I had a friend going to America, and I hopped on the plane.’
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