Such cash-for-clout deals are a common feature of the political conference circuit. Reform\u2019s MacKinnon admits firms may not have the \u201curgency\u201d at this stage in the election cycle to warrant that bigger showing, and public affairs professionals agree that putting budgets toward lobbying the incumbent Labour administration remains the wisest choice.<\/p>\n
Towler \u2014 now running for a seat on Reform\u2019s governing board \u2014 insists some firms are still scared to even attend the conference due to the potential reputational risk of associating with Farage. There remains a perception, Towler says, that those on the winning side of the Brexit referendum are simply \u201cevil bastards.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith corporates there\u2019s still a lot of reticence,\u201d he notes. \u201cI\u2019ve literally had people say I\u2019d like to come along to one of your events but don\u2019t tell anybody I\u2019m coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust grow up. We\u2019ve always had support amongst entrepreneurs, the people who can make decisions for themselves. But as soon as you get to having a board, or having shareholders, there is fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both MacKinnon and Towler agree that the party\u2019s sudden growth in popularity has exposed significant gaps in its policymaking machine \u2014 and so firms willing to dip their toe in the water at these early stages will have better access and opportunities to put meat on the bones of a future Reform agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been quite honest when we meet people \u2014 those that engage earlier on will have a stronger, longer relationship with us, as you can expect,\u201d MacKinnon says. \u201cThat\u2019s just the way it is in every industry and in every sector. So, we are encouraging early engagement, and when we say that to people they understand it fully.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Such cash-for-clout deals are a common feature of the political conference circuit. Reform\u2019s MacKinnon admits firms may not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[802,748,33,393,4884,806,807,384,1144,46,47,11585,9891,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-305533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-brexit","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-industry","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-nigel-farage","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-policy","20":"tag-poll","21":"tag-public-affairs","22":"tag-referendum","23":"tag-scotland","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114945621022899898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}