Farage's petrol station

When does a political stunt become a gimmick? Not today. Daily Telegraph politics 10/03/26

Even Reform’s detractors must give credit where credit is due: the party managed to pull off cut-price fuel at a petrol station in deepest Derbyshire, as lorries rolled past tooting their horns approvingly. Ed Miliband’s Stone or Kinnock: The Movie this was not. Alongside Robert Jenrick, one of Nigel Farage’s newest MPs, the Reform leader filled punters’ tanks with the “cheapest” fuel in Britain, in an attempt to give voters a flavour of what life under the party might feel like. “Reform rates,” Jenrick quipped, as he manually adjusted the prices on a totem sign. Farage and Jenrick pictured today at petrol station in Derbyshire Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick have reduced petrol prices at the Newhaven services, near Buxton Beneath the theatre was some policy: the party has promised to reinstate the 5p cut to fuel duty in its first budget, paid for using £12bn savings from the green energy budget. Reform would also ditch heat pump subsidies as part of its drive to save billions of pounds for tax cuts, with Farage citing a row of houses in Jaywick where they were installed, which he claimed, “don’t work”. Reform estimates the total cost of subsidies for heat pumps and carbon capture, usage and storage schemes will run to £12bn by 2029 and cost £4bn a year in the 2030s. When I catch up with Farage afterwards, he is ecstatic about how the stunt landed and scathing about net zero. The only silver lining is that attitudes towards the arbitrary deadline – debated for less time than plastic straws, as Jenrick reminded attendees – are shifting. Farage recalled a time when he was attempting to organise an event around the target and no one would host it. Now, as the impact of our rushed timetable begins to be felt, the mood is shifting. Earlier this week, oil reached over $100 a barrel, the biggest jump since 2022. This explains Reform’s pivot on Iran, towards a less hawkish stance. Today, Farage said Britain should not join Trump’s war, noting that in any case, our armed forces were in no shape to contribute much. The real calculation here is electoral: focus on domestic policy ahead of the local elections in May. Defence might be growing in salience among voters but it’s still trailing behind immigration and the cost of living. Though the world is becoming more dangerous, polling indicates many members of the British public still regard investment in our military as “nice-to-have”. Farage believes this is beginning to shift as the effects of our international complacency are being felt at home. Let’s hope he’s right. Rachel Reeves’s response has been tediously predictable: pre-emptively bashing businesses for “price-gouging”. It’s hardly the fault of oil and gas companies that Ed Miliband’s net zero zealotry has left us worryingly exposed to fluctuations in global energy markets.