Reform reformed

Good morning. Most political parties in the UK run on some form of “OMOV” (one member, one vote) democracy, to a greater or lesser extent. Nigel Farage’s Reform party operates on a “one man, one vote” principle too: the man’s name is “Nigel Farage”. Now that man has changed the structure of his party again. Some thoughts on the significance of that below.

Dutch lessons

The structure of the Reform party is designed to solve the problems that blighted Nigel Farage’s last party, Ukip, and has tended to haunt parties of the populist right and the far right: individual candidates who repel voters and make their parties look too extreme, and internal infighting.

Both Reform’s original structure and its new one are, I’m told by several people connected to Reform, indebted to what Geert Wilders did with his party. Under Dutch electoral law, a party must have two members to establish itself: Wilders’ party, the PVV, has two: Wilders and a foundation of which Wilders has the controlling stake. This, similarly, is designed to avoid the infighting that has cursed other parties of the Dutch far right.

The reforms that Farage has made — which you can read more about here — include one important change: Farage himself is no longer financially on the hook should the party get into financial or legal difficulties. But more significant is what they maintain: there is still no viable Reform party without Nigel Farage. It still has that “one man, one vote” system: he is still the man and he still has the vote.

Reform’s structure did mean that there were fewer stories about the party’s candidates and activists in the run-up to the general election than there were about Ukip. It also meant that, unlike in Ukip, where Farage himself had to fend off internal challenges and divisions from other politicians, usually defectors like Robert Kilroy-Silk or Douglas Carswell, there is no question of who runs Reform.

But there were still some stories. A handful of candidates had to be disavowed as a result.

This May, Reform is heavily favoured to win the new Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty. It would have to do remarkably badly in the devolved elections in May 2026 — and Farage parties have always done well in Wales — not to end up with at least 14 members of the Senedd and at least one or two members of the Scottish parliament.

The big test of Reform’s structure will come when we see if that new cohort of politicians can be both an asset to Reform and if the rule book deters the schism and infighting that sometimes marred Ukip.

Now try this

I’m on Radio 4’s Free Thinking tonight, he shamelessly plugged. I’m also hoping to see both the Oscar-winning drama I’m Still Here, about the Brazilian military dictatorship, and the horror comedy The Monkey this weekend. However you spend it, have a wonderful weekend!

Top stories today

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