𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

A Reform UK Government will “end the chaos and restore stability” to Britain, Robert Jenrick will pledge today as he campaigns to oust Labour and replace Rachel Reeves as Chancellor. Mr Jenrick will announce measures to ensure markets are not panicked at the prospect of Reform taking power. This comes a day after Nigel Farage named the former Conservative as the party’s “Shadow Chancellor”.

A Reform Government would retain the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) and maintain the independence of the Bank of England, he will declare as the party fights to win the trust of Britons on the economy. Mr Jenrick will unveil measures designed to reassure investors and the business community. Restoring stability and the elimination of waste will be at the heart of Reform’s pitch, with Mr Jenrick saying Reform is “only party that will be as careful with your money as you are”. He has pledged to “oppose the wrecking ball that is Rachel Reeves and this Labour Government”.

Mr Farage has also given the key role of Shadow Education and Skills Secretary to former Tory Home Secretary Suella Braverman. She has promised to “repeal the Equality Act” on day one of a Reform Government, warning Britain is being “ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion” policies. Entrepreneur Zia Yusuf, who has been at the heart of building Reform’s campaigning machine, is Shadow Home Secretary and he will also hold the justice portfolio.

In his first remarks in the new role, he delivered a direct warning to anyone living in the UK illegally, saying: “If you are in this country illegally right now and you are watching this, I want to be crystal clear, as Reform’s Home Secretary, I will ensure that you are deported from these lands.”

Richard Tice – a fierce opponent of the Government’s drive to achieve net zero carbon emissions – takes on the role of Shadow Business, Trade and Energy Secretary. Mr Tice said he would lead a new “super economics and business department” which would have the goal of getting growth of up to 4%.

In today’s speech, Mr Jenrick will attack both Labour and the Conservatives for “taking more of the British people’s money and spraying it around – with no regard for how hard they’ve worked for it or their priorities”. Under his plans, the OBR will be opened up and forced to use outside figures who have “proven forecasting experience”.

He will argue the OBR has overestimated the benefits of low-skilled migration but bat away calls to abolish the body, claiming it has encouraged greater fiscal discipline. Likewise, he will hit out at the Bank of England for “excessive quantitative easing” and for “taking its eye off the ball on inflation” but argue it remains a force for stability. A key priority for the party if it wins power will be avoiding the type of turmoil triggered by Liz Truss’s mini-Budget.

Mr Jenrick is expected to say: “Everything Reform promise will be fully-costed. And because we’re confident about the approach we will take, we’re happy to have our homework marked. The OBR is far from perfect. But the impetus for its creation was a desire to instil fiscal discipline, and that is something we wholeheartedly endorse. Rather than abolish it, we will reform it. We will break up this cosy consensus and ensure it has diversity of opinion. And we’ll run competitions for superforecasters to join the body and pay competitive salaries to those who most accurately model the impact of Treasury decisions.”

On the Bank of England, he will say: “Our interest will always be keeping inflation low because that is how we will keep people’s bills down, so we will strip the Bank of distractions which have been loaded onto it. That includes the requirement for the Bank to help the transition to net zero. And we will demand that the Bank must is a more open institution, and the private sector better represented on the Monetary Policy Committee.”

At Tuesday’s launch of the new “shadow cabinet” positions, Mr Farage declared his party is now the “voice of opposition” to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party.

Mr Farage made clear he would not tolerate open divisions about the party’s senior team, warning: “If people mess about, behave badly and are disloyal, they won’t be here very long. We’re not going to put up with it. We’ll have our disagreements, of course we will, but we’ll have those disagreements in private, behind closed doors, resolve our issues, resolve our disputes that naturally happen when any group of human beings come together, but I won’t tolerate it publicly. We haven’t got time, we’re not going to aim for Government to put it through the same psychodrama that the Conservatives did for over four years where they spent more time fighting each other than they did fighting for the country, so I think we’re pretty clear on that.”

Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake dismissed Reform’s new frontbench team as a “a line-up that looks more like a tribute act to the old Conservative Party than a credible alternative”.

He said: “Even now, some are already eyeing their next career move, while others who were clearly expecting promotion have been left out in the cold. Today’s underwhelming announcement proves Reform remains a one-man band.”

Labour Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson said Mr Jenrick “and his former Tory Party smashed family finances and he’d do the same again through Reform”.