5 key takeaways from Nigel Farage's Reform UK conference
Nigel Farage has claimed his Reform UK party can "change the future of politics".
In Reform's first "party" conference since gaining five MPs at the general election (Reform is actually a private limited company, unlike most political parties), Farage's speech to members focused on professionalising its operation after a number of campaign gaffes which he said cost it votes in July.
Earlier, Reform MP Rupert Lowe referred to the COVID vaccine as “an experimental jab” and Lee Anderson doubled down on past comments when he claimed London mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists.
Here are five takeaways from the conference in Birmingham on Friday.
Farage says Reform needs to copy Lib Dems
In July's election, the Liberal Democrats secured 12% of the vote and 72 seats, compared to Reform's 14% of the vote and only five seats, due to the UK's first-past-the-post voting system.
Farage said that in order to turn votes into seats more successfully, Reform should model itself on the rival Lib Dems: "The Liberal Democrats build branches, the Liberal Democrats win seats at district, county and unitary level. The Liberal Democrats build on that strength, the Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas.
“And despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all - in fact the whole thing’s really rather vacuous isn’t it - they managed with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in Parliament.”
Farage pledges to fully vet candidates
During the election campaign, Reform dropped a number of candidates after past offensive or racist comments emerged. The Guardian reported in May that over 100 of its candidates had been dropped or swapped in 2024, with more than a dozen of those being beciase of offensive or racist comments.
Farage suggested Reform's operation had been amateurish and that "we weren’t big enough, wealthy enough, professional enough to vet general election candidates properly... we could have won a lot more votes and there are lessons that we need to learn from that".
He also announced his party was in the process of recruiting full-time regional managers and regional organisers and said: “I feel that my promise to professionalise the party is now on track. I also promise that in future we will be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels.
"We haven’t got time, we haven’t got room, for a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members and rising by hundreds every single day."
In his final message to members, Farage closed his speech by saying: "What we have to do is to be credible, on the ground everywhere, show we can bring success after success.
"If we do those things - I never thought I'd say this - but I genuinely believe we can change the future of politics, the future of our country, perhaps get back a bit of pride of what it is to be British, respect our history, stand up for our values."
MP falsely labels COVID vaccine 'an experiment'
Rupert Lowe, the Reform MP for Great Yarmouth, was cheered when he referred to the COVID vaccine as “an experimental jab” and a "failure of statism" comparable to the Post Office scandal.
He said: “The failures of statism are well documented after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Collectivism undermines individual responsibility and fosters a culture of rule by committee. A committee adopts the intellect of the member with the lowest IQ, encourages manipulation and makes bad decisions.
“Recent examples in the UK include the Post Office scandal, the infected blood scandal, the COVID response in its entirety, including forcing an experimental jab on millions of people."
The UK Health Security Agency has cited World Health Organization data which estimated the vaccine programme saved 400,000 lives in England up to March last year.
The UK government did not force anyone to take the vaccine. Fact-checking website FullFact stated in 2021 that any claim the vaccination programme was an "experiment" was false, adding: "The three COVID vaccines currently approved for use in the UK have already been shown to be safe and effective in clinical trials."
Lowe says he wants to scrap 'diversity roles'
Lowe received one of the loudest responses from the crowd when he said the UK needs to leave the European Convention on Human Rights
“Singapore propagated a small, highly paid, effective state based on merit alone, and now enjoy GDP per capita twice as high as that of the UK," he said. “Let’s repeal the Human Rights Act of 1997 and leave the ECHR thereby stopping the influence of foreign judges on British law.
“Let’s scrap every diversity related role in a vastly reduced public sector and judge people on merit.
The European Convention on Human Rights protects people from discrimination – including discrimination based on ethnicity, gender or sexuality.
Anderson defends Sadiq Khan 'Islamist' comments
Lee Anderson, the MP for Ashfield, used his speech to dismiss the comments he made about London mayor Sadiq Khan as “constructive criticism”.
Anderson was suspended as a Conservative MP at the start of the year after saying: “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan, and they’ve got control of London." Khan said Anderson was “pouring fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred”.
Anderson, who subsequently defected to Reform in March, doubled down on the comments at the conference, telling party members: “I like to think of it as constructive criticism. In my opinion, he has given our capital city away. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
“I was told at the time that I must apologise to Labour’s mayor in London. Let me tell you, I will never apologise to that man.”
Anderson admitted his comments had been "clumsy" at the time. Rishi Sunak said his comments "weren't acceptable, they were wrong".
Anderson also used his speech to rip up a letter asking him to pay his BBC licence fee. Not paying for a TV Licence could lead to a £1,000 fine.
