If Nigel Farage were an artist, he would be a celebrated impressionist. He has a refined, seemingly effortless talent for painting the distilled essence of a political movement. What does Reform stand for? Even seasoned politicos might struggle to name or detail a Reform policy, but the party’s “vibe” couldn’t be easier to feel. A trompe-l’œil realist, interested in photographic policy detail, Farage is not and has never been. This becomes clear the moment he is pressed on details — the bread and butter accountability of detailed political interviews is never worth his time. As one of his erstwhile Ukip MEPs, Patrick O’Flynn recently wrote: “Broad brush strokes and killer sound bites are still prioritised over detailed policy work.”
The finesse of how to govern well can wait — for now, Reform can simply ride the wave, propelled by the euphoric high of political momentum. Realism and political temperance comes second to whether “The Establishment” is running scared. The old playbook is simple: identify ruling power structures that feel distant and aloof, be they parties or institutions, and campaign against them in an uncompromising, boisterous fashion — all washed down with an (imperial) pint of blokish bonhomie.
But Farage’s script, refined over a political career spanning more than a decade, is changing: “I’m not mucking about — I’ve got one goal, and that is that Reform wins the next general election,” Farage told assembled party members at the launch of Reform’s local election campaign in late March. That’s quite a shift in political aim: from outsider revolutionary to governor. Thursday’s local elections are being spoken of as a mere staging post, before the march onwards to No.10. If we are to take Farage’s stated ambition seriously — and we need to, with a recent gold-standard MRP poll putting reform ahead of Labour and the Tories in seats — then we need to ask what a detail-light party might look to actually implement in power. Policy is harder than it looks.
One of most effective tools in Farage’s arsenal has been his tight, clear messaging. But, as recent history tells us, marrying rhetoric with reality is a challenging business. It wasn’t so long ago that “stop the boats” was launched as a short, simple and seductive slogan. Stopping the boats in practice? Well, just ask Rishi Sunak for just how challenging three short words can be to put into effect. Recognising the challenge of governing actually requiring policy, senior Reform operatives are working to set up a politically aligned think tank to support policy development, modelled on the US think tanks that serve as ideological outriders to the Trump presidency, the FT has reported. It cited an internal document that declared the planned organisation would “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal” and seek to “change opinion around key issues and provide technocratic competence”.
But the very act of defining a policy platform will reveal tensions simmering between the surface. The prevalence of foreign money in British think tanks is quite limited — especially when compared with equivalent American outfits and their vast endowments, payrolls and genuinely global influence. But the FT reported that Reform’s proposed think tank would seek funding from “US donors from MAGA, tech [and] religious conservatives”, in addition to more regular UK sources of funding. No wonder Farage is looking abroad — the sheer scale of US political money embarrasses our own campaign and political research spending. Looking for dollars from the United States, the new Right certainly fits the pattern of Farage’s regular cross-Atlantic visits — and his genuine star appeal at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a jamboree of American Right-wing politicians, broadcasters and influencers.
But Reform are seeking inspiration and funding from a country which has an entirely different political culture could become their undoing. Reform’s online activists too are steeped daily in the disputatious politics of the American Right. Emboldened and energised by a fresh Trump-MAGA victory, the American new Right might look like a winning template for populist-Right parties worldwide. But Reform should exercise caution in the lessons it draws from abroad. There is a discordance between a more pedestrian party of suburban, coastal England, and the radical libertarian-conservative ideology of Silicon Valley tech elites like Peter Thiel and Musk that leads the American new Right. They may align on attitudes to immigration and share the culture war scepticism of anything “woke”, but it doesn’t take long to find grit in the oyster between the two movements.
Reform’s existing voters, and those it is most likely to attract in the future, are predominantly older — just under two-thirds are over 50. The upside of donations from wealthy US Right benefactors is clear, but what about a wider ideological alignment — taking on the political approach and talking points of a foreign political movement? In the UK, voters look upon MAGA’s mercurial radicalism — typified by the tech elite’s “move fast and break things” approach in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — with bemusement. Whether you consider it a national fault or not, Brits are simply less culturally or ideologically invested than the average American in radical, sweeping changes in the scope of the state.
Unlike the United States’ robust recovery from the financial crisis, Britain remains stuck in nearly two decades of economic stagnation, meaning the headroom for change, as Rachel Reeves has found out, is limited. What little remains in most council budgets, which bore the brunt of the austerity period, is now overwhelmingly dedicated to adult social care — something Reform’s older voter base would certainly notice if fiddled with. But, taking the US Right as his inspiration, Farage said he is looking to bring DOGE to local government regardless.
“Taking the US right as his inspiration, Farage said he is looking to bring DOGE to local government regardless.”
At his local election campaign launch, Farage said Reform had submitted 3,000 Freedom of Information requests aimed at identifying and rooting out wasteful government spending. “When we win these county councils, we’ll send in the auditors, we’ll get rid of the fraudulent contracts, we’ll cut spending and we’ll do our utmost to fulfil all of our promises,” he added. It’s a glimpse behind the curtains at his personal Thatcherite past. But this is politics, not policy. Unless he’s proposing cutting adult social care, this is all talk. And while Farage and his followers may occasionally lean and speak libertarian, repeated history tells us that whatever pleases populist conservatives will come first in any party he leads.
A nod to this tendency — later denied by an insider to Politics Home — was the floating of an anti-housebuilding campaign in the launch documents for the proposed think tank — a caveat emptor for any young Reform activists with aspirations to own a home of their own. Farage, like many of his populist Right contemporaries, might be very good at courting a young audience on TikTok. But just as with the Conservative Party, the middle-to-late age, home-owning voter base will dictate the direction of Reform policy, not the well-intentioned frustrations of young activists.
Countering house building might make sense if you view housing as a subset of immigration policy, with each newcomer making the housing shortage even more acute — even if cutting net migration to zero tomorrow would still leave one of the most acute housing shortages in the world entirely unresolved. But the suggestion not immediately being thrown out demonstrates a real cultural difference between Reform, and the ideology behind any money sourced from the more libertarian and radical US Right.
The Siren call of American money will be welcome to a movement without established labour union or business funding routes, but Reform will have to watch itself, and avoid trying to push radical American libertarianism on its more staid, less provocative voters. Labour will be watching like a hawk for any more attackable comments in this space, having finally found an argument capable of taking the wind out of Reform’s sails. It’s not the only foreign policy risk of cosying up to the US New Right — the Trump team’s open disgust for Europe, and its politics and values, is becoming clearer by the day.
Trump’s economic policies, in the wake of the tariff announcements, are a stormcloud on the horizon too. “10% tariffs from the USA are bad news, but better than 20% for EU members,” Farage said — looking to play down his visceral, Thatcherite disapproval of the huge, sweeping changes to global trade policy of his political ally. He increasingly resembles a contortionist, stealthily adapting his message for a sceptical British audience, while desperately trying to appear loyal to Trump.
The undeniable strength of the Reform and Farage brands can paper over a lot of these contradictions on the way up in the polls. When you don’t fill the policy space, voters imagine what they like, and project it onto parties they culturally identify with. But as Reform professionalises, media scrutiny intensifies, and the general election draws nearer, policy positions, influenced by think tanks, will have to start crystallising, exposing the ideological cracks in the party coalition. Farage will need to decide soon if he wants to continue to be the revolutionary leader and terroriser of institutions, or start to work out a framework for actually steering them as a leader. If he doesn’t decide on the latter before long, experience will soon find him out in Downing Street.
Ideological tensions between the donors, membership, voters and leadership of parties are nothing new. But if Farage is serious about preparing for power, then British politics will have to come before American money and ideology. It’s the same question Farage needs to face as leader — making the choice between raging against the machine, or grasping the levers to control it. If these tensions aren’t addressed, expect a bumpier ride in the near future. The Rupert Lowe row and expulsion is evidence enough that ambitious senior Reform operatives will inevitably seek to push their vision into any available policy vacuum.
At their core, Reform–supporting Britons are voting against the radical, disorienting pace of social and economic change experienced in recent decades. Society has moved too fast for them, and they don’t understand it. But unlike their American equivalents, they want to ease off the accelerator, not stamp hard on the brakes. Farage the impressionist can paint feeling but a government needs blueprints, budgets and hard choices. With the local elections near and expectations set sky high, it’s Reform’s first big test to see if they can actually solve the litany of problems that face the British state, when given the opportunity to do so. It’s hard to resist the wealth of American money, but Reform should never forget that even if we share a language, we do not share a culture — and there has rarely been a time more in need of solutions over vibes.
