It hasn’t been a glittering 24 hours for Reform UK. To lose one senior official might be regarded as misfortune etc. However there was no sense of impending doom at the Reform conference in Birmingham – indeed, in his speech Mr Farage obliquely referred to recent events as ‘a little local difficulty’.
These events are not like other conferences. They’re a strange fusion between political frustration and high camp. Think Liberace does the Battle of Orgreave. Speakers are announced with rock music and spotlights, the audience are bathed in a strange blue glow, making the NEC seem like a cross between a day spa and a level on the Crystal Maze.
Outside the main speeches were interspersed with interviews and questions from the floor curated by none other than Jeremy Kyle. ‘Mouth on the mic’, puckered Kyle as an Alternative for Deutschland member with an unpronounceable name approached what Kyle was calling ‘the people’s mic’. ‘Not a clue!’ breathed Kyle as an aside while the German tried to ask a question about the defence of western civilisation.
The Phoenix Nights vibe of proceedings was taken to the next level as Lee Anderson performed a series of podium shout-outs. ‘I suppose I’ve got to mention Sarah Pochin. She’s looking at me over there. The Duchess!’ Whether Anderson knew that this was last used as an affectionate nickname by Jimmy Savile for his dead mother isn’t clear. Anderson flitted between various subjects: Sadiq Khan, his past sparring with Richard Tice, how he’d been voted the worst man in Britain by the Daily Mirror. Mentions of Lord Mandelson and Angela Rayner drew panto boos and hisses.
We had speeches by arch practitioner of Reform camp, Dr David Bull, followed by a more muted address on deportations by Zia Yusuf. The star turn, however, was undoubtedly the French political wunderkind Jordan Bardella. It must be faintly galling to come to a Reform conference expecting to find the embodiment of Englishness and discover that the most charismatic speaker is French. Bardella greeted the audience as ‘the beating heart of the English people’ and swiftly won them round.
To be made to cheer a quote by Napoleon and a cry of ‘Vive La France!’ must have been a profoundly discombobulating experience for some of the more patriotic attendees. It was exceptionally impressive that Bardella delivered his entire speech in English; Mr Farage did voice some unease about the idea that he might be asked to speak in French on the return leg in Paris – yet as Mr Bardella spoke, placing creative emphases on particular syllables, it was very hard to shake the image of Officer Crabtree from ‘Allo ‘Allo.
At the end of his speech, Bardella summoned Mr Farage on stage to sign a memorandum of understanding. It was mostly about the scourge of small boat crossings but also apparently involved a promise by Mr Farage to repatriate the body of Napoleon III which is currently in Chislehurst.
An air of unreality pervaded
Inevitably, the afternoon’s speeches were stalled by protesters – now their own recurring event at Reform conference, as ubiquitous as the ‘Farage 10’ football shirts or the annual eve-of-conference scandal. Richard Tice was interrupted by banner-waving lefties, then a Greenpeace protest delayed Mr Farage from even going on stage until counter-terror police agreed it was safe – leaving him surreally performing laps of the conference centre surrounded by screaming fans as ‘Come On Eileen’ and ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ blared around the hall. His keynote address was interrupted by yet more youthful leftists. Mr Farage wafted these attacks away with a shrug of the shoulders – more weary than irritated. ‘Boooring! Booring!’ he jeered as one activist was carted away. ‘These are the benefits of a university education, folks,’ he shouted as another screaming leftist bit the dust. ‘Tell us love, is it sociology? I bet it is.’
These interventions aside, it was striking just how little the outside world seemed to infringe on the National Exhibition Centre. An air of unreality pervaded. Apart from an unwelcome set of challenges by the journalist Harry Cole earlier in the day and an attempt by Warwickshire Council Chief George Finch – who had come as a character from Bugsy Malone, all pin stripes and shiny shoes – to claim there was an ‘establishment witch hunt’, few even mentioned the sting. To return to Napoleon III, dead Emperors might, for Reform, be the ultimate dead cat.
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