My TCW week in review: Reform UK, Farage’s new Tory party By
Kathy Gyngell
September 7, 2025
WHEN people smell power, they move towards it. And when they get it, they cling on as hard as they can. That’s pretty much the definition of politics and there’s been plenty of proof of it this week. The week started and ended with Angela Rayner, finally forced to let go. It has also been marked by the new magnet of Reform UK (or should we call it the New Tory Party) attracting the power-hungry.
Hot from Washington and his somewhat underwhelming evidence to the House Judiciary Committee on Britain’s lack of free speech, Nigel Farage opened his party conference in an electric atmosphere, one of my spies told me. No, I wasn’t there. I didn’t repeat my last year’s journey to Birmingham. A very different event it sounds too. Last year the mood was set by the anti-establishment (now Independent) Ant Middleton speaking and crowds of eager new members queueing to sign up as potential Reform councillors. This year it’s become mainstream. The establishment and the MSM are flagging their presence and support.
First I noticed that Allison Pearson was promoting a ‘very special edition of her Planet Normal podcast from the Conference’. Then I saw a Zia Yusuf/Michael Gove interview flagged up. The next report I read promised that more than 12,000 people were scheduled to attend along with hundreds of businesses (all remarkable for their absence last year) from Heathrow to TikTok and JCB – all no doubt keen to be ‘in’ with the next government.
And, quite suddenly it was the place to be for past Tory faithful, not just disenchanted Conservative voters.
Former Tory grandees Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg (both unapologetic lockdown hardliners: the former was the Minister for the Cabinet Office responsible for co-ordinating the government’s response to the covid event while the latter over that period was Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council) both now keen to be in the Sun King’s ambit.
Even Tory patron Lord Ashcroft was there, I hear. And Nadine Dorries. You can’t have missed Farage’s latest Daily Mail front-page ‘sensational’ Tory defector. The Tory Party is dead, Ms Dorries has finally decided. How cynical and how off-putting. Where was she all those years when it was clear the party deserved to die? (Or did she never think it did?) At its helm with her chum Boris. Has she ever apologised for the damage the governments she was part of inflicted on the country? No. Talk about political expediency.
Worse was Farage’s fulsome welcome. As Will Jones reminded us in his Daily Sceptic column yesterday, Dorries was the Tory culture minister responsible for the Orwellian Online Safety Act. In his excitement about his coup, Farage must have forgotten that his party savaged the Bill at one point and pledged to replace it.
In Friday morning’s press preview of his speech, there was Farage falling over himself to welcome this dubious celebrity asset to Reform – for the worst and shallowest of reasons: ‘I’m pleased to welcome today to the stage a woman who has served in cabinet as Culture Secretary, a woman who has sold three and a half million books, a woman who has been on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, somebody from the real world who’s worked their way up, been incredibly successful, who actually crosses the boundaries from politician into celebrity, and I’m delighted that we’re going to have the experience, the talent, the hard work and the loyalty of Nadine Dorries, and I’m proud to welcome her on to the stage now.’
As if to emphasis his reverse Tory takeover, he went on: ‘I will, in the next few weeks, open up a new department within the party, leaning on the experience that Nadine and others have, and others will come. Others with experience will come. Don’t worry about that, and we will open a Department for Preparing for Government so that when we win, we can hit the ground running.’
Good grief! Rely on Nadine? On the experience of deadbeat Tories who brought us to the mess we are in? Who have never apologised? On Zia Yusuf, a Tory supporter until a few weeks before his £200,000 gift to Reform (and a paid-up Conservative Party member to August 2024) who, as well as being put in charge of this new department, has been rewarded with yet another party role as Head of Policy?
Did Matthew Goodwin turn this role down? Was he – a man with real qualifications for the job – ever offered it?
So much for a fresh start. But you could say about Nigel as Professor Higgins said about Eliza, ‘By George, (s)he’s got it!’ He has executed that oh-so-difficult flip to become mainstream, en route to becoming the new Tory leader. It is undoubtedly an achievement. But far from a Trumpian one!
A rebirth of the old elite was never what I was looking for in Reform. If I needed any confirmation about my decision to join Advance UK and Restore Britain, this weekend has provided it.
When in July I accepted Ben Habib’s invitation to become a member of Advance UK’s advisory College I set out my reasons here. (You can link to an easier-to-read text here.) Reading it again, I stand by every word. Politics may be the art of the possible, but for Reform UK to be making such big compromises so soon is deeply worrying.
As Editor of this website, I will continue to report, support and endorse all and any positive Reform UK policies and initiatives. But I will not hesitate to criticise when they need it, when they fall short or threaten more of the same.
Eliza’s own comment from Pygmalion is also to the point: ‘The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated.’ The truly brave and principled politician knows that what matters is how he behaves, not how he is treated.
ED - It seems Reform will be the new Moslem government of England, as Catherine Blaiklock says. Farage elected then resigns. His next in line Deputy is always a Moslem. Is that what England wants? So why is England supporting Reform?
The media is delivering us up to be kippered by the former Ukipper, Brexiteer, and now Islamist Farage.