Stepping inside the party’s headquarters, The Telegraph is granted exclusive access to an insurgent force preparing for power
Daily Telegraph 03/01/26
A country recovering from political post-traumatic stress disorder, with its leaders promising renewal that never materialises. Fundamental structural and economic issues marked by soaring debt and rising unemployment remain unresolved. And an insurgent force from the Right, led by an unconventional figure, to supplant the Tories.
The parallels between 1990s Canada and 2025 Britain are striking. Look closely, and Nigel Farage has been drawing them for over a decade. The difference now is that people are listening.
For much of his political life, Farage has been cast by enemies and opponents as a nuisance, a dilettante, even a lunatic. He could split parties, panic leaders – Sir Keir Starmer has claimed a Reform government would keep him up at night – and dominate media cycles.
But run the country? Even now, many remain sceptical that Farage is either inclined or suited to the grind of governing this increasingly ungovernable nation. Even after gaining a parliamentary seat on his eighth attempt and leading a party that secured 4.1 million votes from an impossibly low starting point, the assumption lingers that Farage will remain on the political periphery, lobbing grenades from outside the tent.
But that’s certainly not Farage’s plan. “If we’re going to do radical things, we cannot simply campaign from the sidelines,” he told me on a recent trip to Falkirk, where the party soft-launched its campaign north of the border. “Reform UK winning the next general election and fixing Britain, this is the culmination of everything I’ve done.” In other words, he covets the keys to No 10 as much as any other politician.
On the 24th floor of Millbank Tower, where New Labour game-planned ahead of the 1997 election, Reform is professionalising like crazy. The headquarters now projects permanence, not protest, with a large bar serving Monday-night drinks to donors, and a studio from which chairman, David Bull, and Farage himself, livestream broadcasts.
Soon, they plan to launch a party podcast. Around the edges are well-used meeting rooms – in the centre, desks split into various teams: comms, social media and candidates. Whiteboards are scrawled with target seats. The headcount is now around 70, up from just four in July 2024. And everywhere, teal, the party’s colour: teal football shirts, teal wallpaper and teal logos.
This machine is not all about planning for what may be to come. After a triumph in May that not even Farage foresaw, the party now controls 12 local authorities. It has over 900 councillors, a membership greater than Labour’s (270,000 at last count, each paying £25 a year) and a fundraising operation that a year ago would have been unthinkable.
Reform has topped 170 consecutive opinion polls, rarely dipping below 28 per cent support. Recent scandals have barely registered, much to the frustration of Farage’s adversaries. The conviction of a former Reform Welsh leader for accepting Russian bribes has not dented support, nor have allegations about Farage’s behaviour as a schoolboy – though they do, he says with a weary sigh, demoralise him.
Farage talks of weekly updates on social media performance, of his daily briefs on finance, compliance and – “most importantly”, as this is where many populist parties come unstuck – vetting reports that track thousands of would-be candidates. This is not the work of a flaky pressure group, but rather a serious organisation racing to become a government in waiting. The question is, “Do they have enough time?”
At HQ, I speak to many of Reform’s main players – Farage, head of policy Zia Yusuf, prominent Tory defector Danny Kruger and honorary treasurer Nick Candy, among them – to get a sense of whether they can evolve from, to quote Kruger, “a band of rebels attempting to storm the capital” into a credible administration. Many on the Right want to believe it’s possible, but worry about placing blind faith in a party that barely existed two years ago.
The senior team’s energy, determination and tireless enthusiasm is certainly infectious. They appear utterly resolute – few more so than deputy leader Richard Tice, who took up the challenge of leading the party when Farage stepped back from British politics and generously gave up power when the king returned. They are committed in a way that contrasts favourably with the weltschmerz of many contemporary politicians – and their diagnosis of Britain’s malaise will resonate with many disillusioned voters.
Yet, when pressed on cure they can easily retreat to diagnosis: Britain is governed by an ecosystem of “wet” MPs, civil servants, regulators, courts and quangos. Immigration rises and the boats keep arriving regardless of who’s in office. Energy costs rise, productivity stagnates, public services decay. The Conservative Party not only failed voters, but betrayed them. Yusuf goes further, describing it as a “malevolent” force, though its later years were arguably shambolic and exhausted rather than vicious.
Nor is Reform immune from its own flashpoints and fights. This summer, Yusuf resigned as chair of Reform UK citing doubts his time was best spent there, after a row over one of its MPs and a Commons question on banning the burka. Just 48 hours later he returned to the party. Coming just months after Rupert Lowe was ejected, the episode exposed possible strains within a party still establishing its identity amid explosive growth.
Farage refers to himself as the chief executive – and he means it. The hierarchy, the fierce loyalty the team feel towards him and the discipline are remarkable; his inner circle is so small that, on accompanying Farage to Falkirk in early December, I was one of just a handful who knew about Malcolm Offord’s defection before the former Scottish Conservative peer took to the stage.
This discipline is reinforced structurally: Reform is not a traditional members’ association but is owned by a not-for-profit entity. Supporters argue this prevents capture by extremists or even entryists. Doubters would point out it allows the leadership tighter control than most other British parties. There is no national executive, as with Labour, to offer a rival power base to the leadership.
Kruger refers to Farage as the “top dog”; all others in the pack know exactly where they stand. Yusuf speaks to the leader multiple times a day. Farage is the centre of gravity, his energy prodigious. He works weekends, often on just a few hours’ sleep, once flying to Florida “for a day”. He jokes about “not falling over”, but then adds, in a more sombre tone, “I do get checked.”
But the pressures on the 61-year-old leader – if he succeeds at the next general election he will be the oldest first-time prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1940 – are immense. While he says he listens to advice, like any chief executive he has the final say. “I follow a seven out of 10 rule,” he says. “I listen, but I lead, and provided I’m right 70 per cent of the time, we’re doing OK.” Given where they are, this is hard to fault. Despite the funds now pouring into Reform’s coffers – though Candy wants to increase them substantially – Farage keeps decision-making very tight. “Because for 30 years I’ve never had much of it, I hate wasting money.”
Farage says Reform's biggest electoral target is not disillusioned Conservative or Labour voters but non-voters
Farage says Reform’s biggest electoral target is not disillusioned Conservative or Labour voters but non-voters Credit: Henry Nicholls/ AFP via Getty
Can a party so closely organised around one leader survive expansion? The fragility is obvious. Starmer’s experience – treading water with a vast majority amid the short-termism of British politics and the diminishing agency of MPs – explains why such concentration can feel necessary. But, it also exposes a vulnerability not shared to the same degree by parties with broader internal power bases. Boris Johnson showed how quickly a febrile public can turn on a charismatic politician.
Reform also lacks senior figures with experience of government or opposition. It is like a presidential campaign – where you elect one person and they bring in advisers who have real-world experience – in a parliamentary system. But we don’t have a presidential system and filling over 100 government jobs would be a clear challenge. Failure to get this right risks everything being run by the Civil Service, the very opposite of what Farage wants. “I completely dispute the idea that in order to change the system you need to have been complicit in the failures of the last 25 years,” Kruger insists.
Nevertheless, this may be why the words “executive” and “power” recur in discussions. Yusuf envisages a smaller cabinet, with senior roles filled by “domain experts” rather than career politicians. This is a possible strategy, but outside wartime the record of bringing in outsiders to key government posts in this country has been abysmal.
It’s also why Kruger was such a coup: he has real Westminster experience. He’s a deep thinker, unafraid to voice unfashionable views, with indifference to the 24-hour news cycle. His defection gave pause to Conservatives who viewed Reform as a wrecking ball. And indeed, he tells me this project is about “restoration”, not vandalism.
The trouble is, they need a dozen Krugers – though debate rages within the party on how many defectors to accept. Most recently, several former Tory MPs signed up to Reform: Jonathan Gullis, Chris Green and Lia Nici, prompting Farage to say he cannot stop them. But membership guarantees nothing. And there is a natural tension between providing refuge to disaffected Tory MPs who have seen the Reform light, and fears they will alienate core supporters who feel a personal animus towards the Conservatives.
And what of Labour MPs? “We get quite a lot of Bennite former activists,” Farage says. There are one or two socially conservative members – those affiliated with Lord Glasman’s Blue Labour – he would like to see join his team.
Before general election thoughts, however, Reform’s first test is securing votes in the coming May local elections – in Scotland, Wales, the “doughnut” around London and the rest of England. Farage is fixated on them. He expects to make huge strides in Scotland, to top the polls in Wales. If there are to be defections, that’s where he wants them, because these regions are no longer peripheral theatres but proof of concept that his party can smash through in places which have for decades been entirely dominated by other parties.
He talks excitedly of touring the country again, clicking into campaigning mode. Ask him which part of the job he loves most, and he’ll tell you it’s the high street. “I’m incredibly well known,” he says flatly, a statement of fact rather than a boast. In Falkirk, at a hotel hosting both a Reform rally and a wedding, I watched as he passed the bride-to-be in the corridor, wearing a dressing gown, her hair in rollers. She instantly recognises him and the moment could be awkward. But he is effortlessly charismatic, flashing a grin, shaking her hand, congratulating her on her forthcoming nuptials. On stage later, he comes alive.
The number I keep hearing from insiders is “326”, the symbolic threshold of what’s needed for a parliamentary majority. But there are two problems. First, their biggest electoral target, Farage says, is not disillusioned Conservative or Labour voters but non-voters: those who have dropped out of politics altogether, or never engaged to begin with. They’re less likely to drift over to other parties, but Reform has to mobilise them first. In a country where a vote for Strictly on your mobile is the norm, trudging down to a gloomy church hall on a wet Thursday to cast a vote may be too much trouble for many, however much they may rail against the current Government.
Communication will be vital; not just making the Reform message more palatable to a broader audience but ensuring tactical voting does not kick in, as with the Caerphilly by-election many anticipated Reform would win, only for Plaid Cymru to storm to victory.
They must sound like a government, without losing their insurgent edge: too much moderation risks alienating the base; too little repels the cautious middle. Put this to Reform and they’re sanguine. Farage is their lightning rod, whose appeal is simple: “I’m no different in real life. I have authenticity.” He’s the straight-talking politician in a sea of jargon-spouting automata.
Second, they need more than 326 if they are to avoid – as Kruger puts it – “being held hostage by a tiny number of MPs who might turn out not to be onside”. Reform will be putting forward contentious proposals requiring big numbers in Parliament. To get those numbers, it must be absolutely on top of its game.
Even this may not suffice. The Reform leader doubts the Lords would uphold the Salisbury Convention, where peers normally allow manifesto commitments to proceed. This leaves him with a choice: abolish the second chamber – more easily said than done – or pack it with his people. The idea of creating 500 new peers (as George V was willing to do, if it had proved necessary to secure passage of the Parliament Act in 1911) has been floated – but even assuming this could happen, it would be difficult to find so many halfway-reputable people to take ermine – alongside the 400 or more plausible MPs they’ll need. And it will take time, which slips through the fingers of any government.
Applications for parliamentary candidates open in January. They expect over 5,000 to apply, thanks no doubt to what Kruger describes as Reform’s “cascading respectability”. The process will be overseen by head of campaigns, Jack Duffin, but signed off by their seven-strong board which includes both Farage and Yusuf. They’re looking for loyalists, evidence people can get through adversity and withstand the scrutiny that seems to accompany any association with this fledgling party. They’ll need to be tough and squeaky clean.
In several Reform-controlled authorities, budget pressures have forced uncomfortable choices. Some propose maximum council tax rises. Farage notes he never promised cuts – only restraint – but that might not appease our fractious electorate. “With debt levels this high,” he says, “reductions are impossible”. He shakes his head when discussing special educational needs spending and the impact it is having on town hall budgets. “It’s a nightmare. But as soon as you talk about it, you’re becoming horrible to kids.”
This is the reality of government: trade-offs and unpopular choices. And if Reform struggles to deliver at the local level, with limited powers and budgets, how can it manage against the full weight of Whitehall, the courts, the markets, international law?
Reform’s last manifesto, its 2024 “contract with the people”, was never meant as a governing document. It is now viewed as having been a statement of intent, even a provocation. Promises to stop the boats within 100 days, for example, were never designed to be executable plans. Next time, Kruger says, it’ll be different. Reform will not just publish a manifesto but a full programme for government, with draft legislation and executive priorities prepared in advance.
Between them, they must devise a plan on immigration that can survive contact with reality. Yusuf’s proposals are uncompromising; and the party’s rhetoric on illegal immigration has been a central plank of its appeal. Commentators have noted how populist Right-wing parties worldwide often converge on this issue as a core identity marker. He promises “primary legislation, pulling out all the stops”. The majority of his time is spent on this, and he’s volunteering 14-hour days, seven days a week.
Kruger is grappling with the Civil Service, and recently announced plans to slash headcount by 13 per cent to help make “Whitehall, Whitehall again”. Farage points to Javier Milei, Argentina’s “Chainsaw President”, who has reduced government spending by more than 30 percent as possible inspiration.
He complains about the ballooning number of managers and “HR people” and the stagnating output. So Kruger is tasked with restoring accountability, perhaps even pegging pay to GDP or productivity increases. Both he and Yusuf are open to politicising Whitehall, at least as a last resort.
This is bold, and capacity is thin. “We’re building up the team,” Kruger says, admitting: “it’s not big at the moment. But we’d rather be small than outsized and flabby.” They are speaking to experts – former senior members of the Civil Service, ex-military figures, KCs – and setting up working groups. Still, it took Margaret Thatcher and her team over a decade to break the union stranglehold on this country, across seven industrial relations acts. Reform want to deliver on immigration within a year. So I ask Farage, can he really take on the civil servants, the vested interests, the unions? He puts his head in his hands. On looking up he says, defiant: “We’ve got to bl---y try. We have to establish what is achievable and accept we can’t fight every battle at once.”
But it does need policies beyond the Civil Service and immigration – and there’s an obvious internal conflict between churning out ideas and the risk they will be pinched by others or subject to intense and damaging scrutiny. Yusuf talks of a “great reform bill” – of the Human Rights Act being the first legislation for the scrapheap, replaced with some sort of Bill of Rights. Farage muses about a Chancellor’s remit, and whether it ought to be pared back to “just the numbers – a bl---y important job”.
He might then create an economics ministry, whose secretary would be on a par with the occupant of No 11. This is an idea with a long history: think the Department of Economic Affairs in Harold Wilson’s day. It might work this time: others have suggested the Treasury is far too big, and there would be the added bonus that at least two senior figures in Reform – Yusuf and Tice – are thought to want the key economic portfolio.
Richard Tice gave control of the party back to Farage upon his return to politicis
Richard Tice gave control of the party back to Farage upon his return to politicis Credit: Christopher Furlong
In terms of fiscal policy beyond that, Farage doesn’t yet know, but he is confident time is on his side. “The social dimension is going to be huge,” he says. “We said we were on the side of working people. We can’t please everybody. It’ll cause all sorts of protests, riots, problems, but it’s unavoidable.”
The shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, is scathing when I speak to him. “It’s back-of-the-fag-packet economics,” he says, cautioning that Reform are still promising unfunded tax cuts that risk spooking the markets, Liz Truss-style. But Kruger hopes that a convincing majority for a government which sticks to its word will keep the bond vigilantes calm.
Perhaps there is a deeper problem, however. What if Reform wins, delivers on its promises, yet still fails to fix Britain? Critical, if sympathetic, voices argue that Reform’s mix of free market economics with strict immigration controls is impossible in the era of globalised capitalism. That, in practice, Farage will have to choose: soften his economic nationalism or abandon liberal economics for greater state control. They worry that Reform – like all political parties – has not grasped the demographic and fiscal realities confronting the country. Net immigration is already falling sharply: on current trends we could face net emigration and a declining population. What will that mean for growth, the public finances and social care?
At a minimum, the public must be warned of short-term pain. Kruger acknowledges this, saying, “There may be immediate pain, but we can’t just maintain the status quo, dragging down productivity and wasting taxpayer money. Disruption is inevitable.” Will the public tolerate delay, or will they turn on a Reform government as quickly as they have turned on Labour?
And it is worth pausing to consider what happened in that other, earlier insurgency: Canada’s Reform Party under Preston Manning. Its rise culminated in a rebranding as the Canadian Alliance in 2000 and, ultimately, a merger with the Progressive Conservative Party in 2003 to form the modern Conservative Party of Canada – effectively subsuming the original Reform identity into a broader conservative movement. Stephen Harper emerged as leader the following year and, after moderating the party’s image, it formed governments from 2006-2015.
Farage maintains a pact with the Tories is out of the question. “I do not trust them,” he says pointedly. “In their current form, there is nothing worth saving.”
Manning’s Reform achieved what few thought possible: it broke a dysfunctional status quo and pulled a major party in a new direction. What Reform UK has achieved so far remains exceptional by any measure. No one believed – not even Farage – that they would be in this position now. But while insurgent Right-wing parties can upend politics, the transition from protest to power demands adaptation, coalition-building and institutional depth. Without it, Reform may struggle to endure beyond their founder’s shadow. Still, I am much less sceptical that they can deliver now than I was a month ago.
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