{"id":406213,"date":"2025-09-07T21:33:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T21:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/406213\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T21:33:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T21:33:22","slug":"nigel-farages-party-is-trying-to-step-out-of-his-shadow-can-it-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/406213\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage\u2019s party is trying to step out of his shadow. Can it? \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Neil Hall\/EPA<\/p>\n

Broadly speaking, though, the circle of people in the room for key decisions is small. As well as key elected representatives and Yusuf, Reform figures who were asked by POLITICO pointed to Farage\u2019s Director of Communications Dan Jukes, effectively his chief of staff; long-time Farage ally and strategist Chris Bruni-Lowe; Director of Operations Aaron Lobo; and Reform Director of Communications Ed Sumner.<\/p>\n

A second Reform figure described Farage\u2019s core team as \u201cvery tight.\u201d A third Reform figure suggested four people plus Farage were in the room at key moments, adding: \u201cUltimately Nigel is the leader and he makes the decisions.\u201d Yusuf told a conference event that Reform\u2019s recent immigration policy \u2014 a sprawling pledge that would lead to around 600,000 deportations \u2014 was drawn up \u201centirely in-house.\u201d<\/p>\n

On policy, though, Reform figures are keen to show that they understand they\u2019ll need a wider pool of thinkers. \u201cOur biggest weakness is we have no experience in government,\u201d said a fourth Reform figure. \u201cWe have no one that knows the ropes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes it seems to show. Farage\u2019s big announcement in his Friday speech, to stop migrant boat crossings in the English Channel \u201cwithin two weeks of winning government,\u201d became \u201cwithin two weeks of legislation being passed\u201d by the time he gave press interviews on Saturday. Tory strategists are separately keen to pick at what they paint as fiscal incoherence in Farage\u2019s call to ease a two-child limit on benefits \u2014 a pledge that emerged from his desire for more British babies<\/a> \u2014 at the same time as making \u201cserious cuts\u201d to the welfare budget.<\/p>\n

A fifth Reform figure argued the leader is a factor: \u201cNigel\u2019s not a huge policy guy,\u201d they said. \u201cNigel\u2019s role is to drive the party forward, to inspire the ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so, enter the wonks<\/p>\n

Reform\u2019s nine-member party board met for the first time last week. It consists of Farage, Yusuf, chairman David Bull, racehorse trainer Andrew Reid, the former leader of UKIP (Reform\u2019s predecessor party) Paul Nuttall, ex-GB News presenter Darren Grimes, regional mayor Andrea Jenkyns, former Tory Greater Manchester mayoral candidate Dan Barker, and Farage\u2019s former press chief Gawain Towler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neil Hall\/EPA Broadly speaking, though, the circle of people in the room for key decisions is small. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[8719,5109,802,1194,28,1204,71774,139981,2438,12495,33,393,21604,10779,40,806,601,139982,48962,46147,25809,7911,2452,6657,12,384,391,139983,7965,46,47,8721,48,35450,24488,712,22793,2824,27005,16,68103,15,49,1764,12340],"class_list":{"0":"post-406213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-andrea-jenkyns","10":"tag-boris-johnson","11":"tag-brexit","12":"tag-budget","13":"tag-buildings","14":"tag-cancer","15":"tag-david-bull","16":"tag-david-frost","17":"tag-department","18":"tag-development","19":"tag-elections","20":"tag-england","21":"tag-euroskeptics","22":"tag-farms","23":"tag-immigration","24":"tag-industry","25":"tag-jd-vance","26":"tag-john-redwood","27":"tag-lee-anderson","28":"tag-marcus","29":"tag-mayors","30":"tag-meat","31":"tag-media","32":"tag-migration","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-nigel-farage","35":"tag-opinion","36":"tag-paul-nuttall","37":"tag-platforms","38":"tag-policy","39":"tag-poll","40":"tag-richard-tice","41":"tag-rights","42":"tag-robert-f-kennedy","43":"tag-robert-jenrick","44":"tag-scotland","45":"tag-skills","46":"tag-tanks","47":"tag-tony-blair","48":"tag-uk","49":"tag-ukip","50":"tag-united-kingdom","51":"tag-united-states","52":"tag-wales","53":"tag-welfare"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406213","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=406213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}