Against all the odds, Reform UK has turned politics on its head. And it’s just the start.
The party my partner leads has not allowed a shoe-string budget to limit its ambition
ISABEL OAKESHOTT 2024 • 
Somewhere in the Midlands is a farmer who fantasised about giving the UK’s fastest-growing political party £1 million. He turned up to a meeting in a very fancy tractor which took up half the pub car park and was quite possibly funded by the EU. But it didn’t take much sleuthing to conclude that it was only ever going to be a dream, both for the generous-sounding gentleman and for Reform UK. Very few folk with that kind of money live in a modest cottage, and a bit of due diligence quickly revealed that this knight in shining armour was just a benign attention-seeker.
As it continues to narrow the gap with the Conservatives, triggering an orgy of special pleading from Tory MPs not to field candidates in their seats, the political party my partner has led since 2021 is on a roll. With every migrant boat that crosses the Channel; with every devastating statistical update on legal migration; with every failure to drag the economy off the floor; Reform UK gathers votes. The one thing the party does not have, however, is cash.
Being on various political party mailing lists, in recent weeks, I have received fundraising emails from both Labour and the Conservatives. The way they plead poverty always amuses me, because compared to Reform UK, they are absolutely loaded.
A glance at the latest figures on the Electoral Commission website highlights just how much they rake in. In 2023 alone, the Tory party received some £48 million from supporters, while Labour racked up £30 million. This is more than enough to meet day-to-day operating costs and maintain a healthy election fighting fund. Even the Lib Dems (a party that has all but vanished from the national political scene under the leadership of Sir Ed Davey) somehow attracted just over £8 million.
As for Reform UK? Last year, it received £1.3 million, every penny of which was incredibly gratefully received. The party’s main assets are a 20-year-old open-top bus, which conked out on the way to a press launch, and one non-Ulez compliant taxi. The defection of “30p Lee” Anderson from the Conservatives dramatically improved the bottom line, not least because it attracted 4,000 new party members.
What this tiny budget means is that, while the Tories and Labour are mighty (if malfunctioning) machines, Reform UK is an entrepreneurial, high-growth start up.
There’s no human resources department; no 24-hour press office; no secretaries or executive PAs; no fancy advertising agency or huge social media team. It’s just a handful of phenomenally committed people, working crazy hours, generally for absolutely nothing in return, because they truly, madly, deeply believe in the cause. As for my partner Richard Tice, he has personally kept the party afloat for the best part of three years, with the help of a fantastic chief executive officer who has a tiny office in Leicestershire and a very modest support team.
For most of this period, a commitment to giving voters in this country a credible alternative to Starmer’s socialism and to a Tory party that has come perilously close to destroying this country, has been treated with utter disdain by arrogant Tory and Labour MPs, who seem to think they have a God-given right to take turns to rule.
Until very recently, members of the sneering Left-leaning establishment, including the BBC, had barely been able to bring themselves to mention Reform UK by name. (Earlier this month, the Beeb showed its true colours by casually describing the party as “far Right,” an insult to millions of decent voters who despair at the state of Britain and see no realistic prospect of it getting any better under either Starmer or anyone representing the Conservative Party.) Those behind Reform UK just kept going, never letting a shoestring budget limit their ambition.
But according to the latest polls, Reform UK is now the third most popular political party in the country. Expectations of its performance are rising accordingly. The pressure on those responsible for not disappointing existing and potential supporters is immense.
The scale of the threat Reform now poses to a Tory party that likes to boast about being “the most successful election winning force in history”, means it is under hostile scrutiny as never before. The political opportunity is extraordinary, but the perils are everywhere: from the dubious figures with links to rival parties and hard-Left groups trying to infiltrate the organisation, to decent-seeming people who sign up as candidates and pass initial vetting procedures, only to reveal unacceptable views on social media after a few drinks.
All political parties have to contend with such characters (just look at Labour’s disastrous choice as its candidate in the recent Rochdale by-election), but weeding them out is tough with limited infrastructure.
While trying to craft policy; prepare for local and mayoral elections; fight by-elections, and keep on exposing the abject failings of this Government, Reform’s tiny team is now also fielding hundreds of enthusiastic emails every single day. Each and every one of these messages, generally from voters who are furious and despairing about the Tory betrayal, deserves an answer.
So while armchair observers question why the party isn’t devoting more resources to this or that; and critics seize on any indication of “underperformance,” they’d do well to remember that Reform UK is a party built on passion – not tainted money from people trying to buy peerages. It has got where it is today with a whole lot of conviction and very little cash.
Soon traditional Tory donors may begin to realise that continuing to throw money at a party that is hurtling towards the terrible reckoning it deserves is like using bank notes to fuel bonfires. As Reform inches towards level-pegging with the Conservatives in the polls, it looks increasingly as if they are backing the wrong horse.
ST.
