The party knows looking credible is key. That’s why Farage will be leading the pledge-making to the public, culminating in a policy-laced but unscripted speech on Friday. Robert Jenrick, Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice — his spokespeople for the Treasury, home affairs and business briefs, respectively — will be making them too.
“It will be very serious about the problems the country faces and how we intend to fix them in the first 100 days,” the official cited above said.
Some in Reform had hoped the conference would mark the moment Farage announced an expanded front bench. Key posts like health and defense remain unfilled, despite Farage trying to demonstrate the party is no one-man band. But the party will hold off until after the Birmingham jamboree is over, instead announcing “a couple of new people” later this month and in October, according to the official.
Summer of scrutiny
Farage’s return to the limelight, which he has uncharacteristically dodged ever since his re-election in Clacton, began on Wednesday, with an interview with the BBC’s political editor.
The Reform leader has faced repeated questions over a £5 million donation from crypto-entrepreneur Christopher Harborne, as well as support from convicted fraudster George Cottrell.
Farage continued to insist Wednesday that he has “done nothing wrong” in not declaring the support in the run-up to the 2024 general election. He argued that the intense scrutiny of Reform’s funding is down to an “establishment” stitch-up, and railed against living in a “complainants’ society.” He compared his situation to the investigations faced by fellow “outsider” Donald Trump.