ANDREW PIERCE: With candidates as flaky as their policies, the unsettling reality of Reform – the party now set to hand Keir Starmer a thumping majority

After Nigel FarageFollowing Monday’s announcement that he was taking control of Reform UK and standing for parliament for an eighth time, there was a palpable air of excitement as his party’s senior figures gathered for their shadow cabinet meeting on Zoom two days later.

The movement’s A-team – including Richard Tice, abruptly demoted from leader to chairman; ex-Tory cabinet minister Ann Widdecombe; businessman and former MEP Rupert Lowe and presenter Dr David Bull – planned to toast their hero.

But when they gathered for their online video conference on Wednesday, there was one conspicuous absence: Farage. “Amazingly rude,” spat one veteran supporter last night.

There were already worrying signs that Farage had no intention of treating his colleagues as a ‘cabinet of equals’. In an interview in Tuesday’s Today program on BBC On Radio 4, Farage appeared to rewrite a major immigration reform policy live on air.

When asked about Reform’s flagship proposal to deal with asylum seekers in the British Overseas Territories, he stated: ‘I don’t think it’s very practical.’

Host Mishal Husain said, “The policy you have put forward is not practical?” Farage replied: ‘I think it’s a very difficult policy… I took it over yesterday so give me more than 12 hours and I’ll sort out a few things.’

Farage’s veteran supporter tells me: ‘I couldn’t believe Nigel dropped a set policy in a radio interview. We are a team – not a one-man show.”

The UK’s newly appointed leader Nigel Farage has turned this election on its head, with opinion polls showing reform at 17 percent – within a blink of the Tories

But whatever doubts there may be about his leadership style, there is no doubt that Farage’s return has turned this general election campaign on its head. The latest opinion polls show reform at 17 percent, within striking distance of the Tories. And with weeks to go, this could still push Rishi Sunak into a humiliating third place in the polls.

Now some observers fear the move could upend British politics for a generation – and fatally weaken the Tory Party.

So what exactly is reform, what does it stand for, and who – besides Farage and Tice – is involved?

Strictly speaking, Reform is not actually a political party at all. It is effectively a limited company that makes annual returns on Companies House. Farage owns 53 percent of the shares and Tice 33 percent: meaning Farage owns Reform.

Mr Farage announces his intention to stand as a candidate in the upcoming general election at a press conference on June 3

The submissions to Companies House are revealing. Under ‘occupation’ Farage is described as ‘leader of a political party’. Tijs? ‘Director’. Another shareholder is Paul Oakden, the chief executive of Reform and a member of the shadow cabinet, as well as a former chairman of UKIP – which preceded the Brexit Party. Never far from controversy, Oakden once posed as a pilot on the dating website MingleVille, where he also posed with a £150,000 Aston Martin, implying it was his – it was actually owned by his boss, the then Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.

Reform has boasted that it will field candidates in all 650 constituencies – but the snap election means they will have to scramble to fill more than 100 vacancies. This could mean cutting back on vetting, which could be disastrous.

In April, it was revealed that at least 12 candidates had been dumped or suspended from the party over offensive social media posts.

There are also pressing financial problems. As of 2021, Tice, a millionaire property developer, is responsible for approximately 80 percent of declared financing in the form of loans and donations. At the end of 2022, Mehrtash A’Zami, a director of Reform, said the party had net liabilities of more than £1 million, a ‘significant percentage of which comes from director loans’. Tice alone has lent Reform £1.1 million.

Nick Candy and Holly Valance at the Reform UK press conference in London, where it was announced that Nigel Farage will become the party’s new leader

But Farage’s return should ease the funding crisis. Little noticed at Monday’s press conference was the presence of billionaire property developer Nick Candy and his blonde wife, actress Holly Valance.

Candy, who has given £270,000 to the Tories, is an interesting political beast. In 1997 he voted for Tony Blair, but has since supported Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. “Candy can spot a winner,” said one astute employee. ‘It is fair to speculate that he will financially support Farage, who is a proven winner.’

Christopher Harborne – boss of Sherriff Global Group, which deals in private jets – donated £13.7 million to the Brexit Party, becoming one of the biggest donors in British political history. He is also expected to donate to Reform now that Farage is in charge.

Farage’s Reform Party could split the Tory vote and inadvertently hand the keys to Number 10 to Keir Starmer and Labor

When it comes to policy, Reform has some attractive ideas that will undoubtedly appeal to lifelong Tories. The 40 per cent income tax threshold, currently £50,270, would be increased to £70,000. In contrast, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s decision to freeze the thresholds until 2028 will be the biggest tax increase measure since the 1970s.

The reform will also abolish inheritance tax on estates under £1 million. Currently it applies to the part of each estate worth more than £325,000. For estates over £2 million, Reform would halve the levy from 40 per cent to 20 per cent – ​​or nothing if you make an equivalent donation to charity.

But why is Reform promising to increase the threshold for paying income tax from £12,500 to £20,000 a year? Not only is this hugely unaffordable, it would also reinforce the pernicious idea that only wealthier people should pay taxes and fund public services, reinforcing the something-for-nothing culture that has grown since the pandemic.

The reform is on stronger ground when it states that consumers have been ‘defrauded and failed by weak regulators’. But their answer is to return 50 percent of the major utilities to state ownership, while the other half is taken over by pension funds.

The price tag will be disastrous. The Center for Policy Studies, a Thatcher think tank, estimated in 2019 that full nationalization of energy transmission, water, the Royal Mail and rail would cost £196 billion.

The reform has also proposed an ’employer immigration tax’ to encourage companies to hire British workers instead of cheaper immigrants. This would increase employers’ national insurance contributions from 13.8 percent to 20 percent of the salary of every non-UK citizen they employ (health and social care sectors and businesses with fewer than five staff would be exempt ).

The tax would affect around 3.5 million foreign workers – and Farage admitted this week that ‘some’ small businesses ‘could go bankrupt’ as a result. So much for being on the side of the employees. All eyes will be on Reform’s plan to ‘stop the boats’. The policy document promises that the reform would ‘take migrants off the boats and take them with them’ [them] back to France’, and emphasized that ‘we are legally allowed to do this’ thanks to unnamed but very useful ‘international treaties’. If that’s true, why didn’t anyone think of it before?

Laughably, Reform says about the crisis in social care: ‘To be decided.’ Not very encouraging with the elections 26 days away.

Can they win seats? Farage has a good chance of taking Clacton in Essex, while Tice hopes the party can win five more across the country.

They are not worried that their tactics will split the Tory vote and hand Starmer a landslide victory. They are indeed relishing the prospect, which is strange given that a large majority will allow him to negate Brexit, Farage’s political raison d’etre.

Farage has a good chance of taking over Clacton in Essex, while Tice hopes the party can win around five across the country, argues Andrew Pierce.

A veteran reform activist mutters, “With Nigel it’s like riding a tiger. A tiger is unpredictable. I thought we would be talking about good governance for Britain, but we have turned back the clock on Ukip and immigration and will be accused of xenophobia again.

‘Under Richard Tice we were building a strong movement, but Farage has thrown a stone into the pool. I’m glad we’re rising in the polls – but strong leadership isn’t about strong egos.

‘I worry because we need teamwork, cooperation and compromise. The events of the past week make that unlikely.”