𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It was standing room only by the time the last hacks crowded into the sweltering room at Reform UK’s headquarters where Nigel Farage holds his press conferences. His gifts as a showman are legendary, and the sense of drama was off the charts. Kemi Badenoch had sacked Robert Jenrick as Shadow Justice Secretary that morning because he was allegedy planning to defect. Was this the moment when one of the most ambitious men in British politics would pledge his allegiance to Reform UK?

Mr Farage said had not invited us here for such an announcement. The “point of this press conference”, he said, had been to condemn “absolutely monstrous” delays to local government elections and announce his intention to seek a judicial review.

“I’m going to save that for a couple of days because lots of other things appear to have happened this morning,” he said.

The Reform leader was enjoying every moment and he hiked up the suspense.

Yes, he said, he had been talking to Mr Jenrick for some months – as he had been talking to “many, many other senior Conservative figures and incidentally some Labour ones as well”.

Goodness! Was somebody else going to walk into the room and announce he or she was joining Reform?

“There will be a Labour defection next week which you’ll all be invited to,” he said.

He then accused Mrs Badenoch of “jumping the gun,” and making a massive misjudgement in her sacking of Mr Jenrick, saying: “He wasn’t going to join today, he wasn’t going to join tomorrow, he wasn’t going to join next week; in fact, knowing what these negotiations are like, he might not have joined at all. I think on balance it’s 60/40 that he would have done, but you never know until the deal is signed and the hand is shaken.”

Mr Farage said he’d had to think “very quickly” how he should respond.

“I just want to say thank you to Kemi Badenoch,” he continued, saying she had handed him a late Christmas present.
He offered to buy her lunch for doing perhaps “more than anybody in history to help realign the centre-Right of British politics”.

On that note, he said: “I will welcome Robert Jenrick into this room an into Reform UK.”

If this had been a Reform rally it would be the moment when the fireworks went off. But where was he? Seconds ticked by. Was he having second thoughts?

Mr Farage was unfazed. After about half a minute of waiting, he laughed: “This would be a very funny end of the day. It really would.”

But after 1min 43secs the Honourable Member for Newark appeared and the world knew that Reform had a sixth MP.

He did not look like a gleeful warrior but someone slap-bang in a moment he knew would shape the rest of his life. There was no element of cabaret in his delivery as he launched into a speech in which he described why he was quitting the party of Churchill.

Most of the Westminster party, he explained, “lost its way,” adding: “The principles were betrayed because a critical mass don’t believe in those principles at all.”

He went on: “Most of the Conservative party in Westminster are in denial or, worse, they are being dishonest about what the party’s done.”

Arguing that Mr Farage had made the right calls on issues such as the small boats crisis, he said: “They laughed at him. They’re not laughing now.”

Side by side with his new party leader, he answered questions in the sweltering room, gradually growing more relaxed in his new reality.

Mr Farage said that far from splitting the Right-wing vote: “What you’ve seen today is actually a very fascinating, historically perhaps significant, reuniting of people on the centre-Right.”

Next week, if Mr Farage is right, a well-known Labour figure will be joining the Reform tribe.

He wrapped up the press conference, saying: “See you all next Tuesday.”

The show will go on.