Reform Party conference looked like a starter pack for British nationalists
British flag T-shirts, Reform-branded football tops, a woman draped in a Union Jack flag with a matching cap, Make Britain Great Again caps. Reform Party conference looked like a starter pack for British nationalists.
It was an introduction to what awaited in the main hall. Members cheering loudly at Reform politicians saying for the nth time that they would “detain and deport” migrants. A woman next to me shouted “Fabulous! Perfect!” as Reform’s new head of policy Zia Yusuf said the party would take UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights and set up a UK deportation command. “Send them back home,” she cried.
Another older member I spoke with, who had previously been a Ukip member, said “We need to look after our own” and said that he doesn’t want “migrants gone” but he supports Reform’s deportation plans.
He said he had always been keen for the UK to get out of single market (European Economic Area), but that leaving the EU hasn’t worked. “We haven’t made the right opportunities out of it,” he said, “we’re still restricted by rules and regulations.”
On asylum seekers, he said “They’re not asylum seekers, they’re illegal immigrants, they’ve come here from France!”.
I clarified they’re claiming asylum in the UK and that post-Brexit, the UK no longer has agreements with the EU to return them to France. He dismissed this, insisting we still need to send them back.
There was a palpable sense at the conference that Reform supporters have convinced themselves that British people no longer have any rights. Never mind the fact that Reform UK wants to scrap human rights legislation including the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect our fundamental freedoms.
The ECHR limits state power by holding governments accountable for abuses of citizens’ human rights. It safeguards privacy at home and family life, freedom of expression, and the right to a fair trial, protections that could be destroyed if Reform succeeds in dismantling these laws.
Not only that, but while members talk about the need for the government “to look out for own”, Farage has today announced that Reform would make “serious cuts” to the welfare budget if elected in 2029. So much for Reform being “for the British people”.
The party’s is equally obsessed with the Labour government’s supposed collapse. They were jubiliant at Keir Starmer’s reshuffle and Angela Rayner’s resignation. The hall booed when Farage reminded them that the next election wasn’t until 2029, though he suggested Labour might only last until 2027.
This is a man who warned of “Brexit betrayal” earlier this year when Keir Starmer tried to establish a better post-Brexit relationship with the EU – the same Brexit that has already cost the UK economy £140 billion.
Now, Farage appears intent on trying to manufacture a crisis and force Labour into an early election. Ultimately, because he wants to grab power. At one point, Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyn’s bizarrely asked members to stand up and said: “Repeat after me: ‘Nigel will be prime minister’”.
GB News and TalkTV’s Jeremy Kyle were (unsurprisingly) out in force at Reform’s conference. Serena Barker-Singh, a reporter from Sky News, a channel which has previously been criticised for its lack of balance when reporting on Reform UK, was on one of its panels. It now falls to the rest of the press to expose Reform and Farage’s prejudiced narratives and lack of policies so the public sees the party for what it is really is.
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