Speech unlikely to draw a line under Farage’s problemspublished at 18:41 BST
18:41 BST
Joe Pike
Political correspondent
Nigel Farage’s big speech was delayed, firstly by a security
alert then by interruptions from a series of environmental protestors shouting
in the conference hall.
When he got going, the Reform UK leader decided not to avoid
the latest allegations around his party’s approach to donations. Instead, he
launched a carefully-balanced rebuttal.
Farage said the undercover filming from Verbatim
Investigations was “a prolonged exercise in entrapment”, prompting a
big round of applause from party members. The organisation has told the BBC its
reporting was “carried out to the highest journalistic standards”.
Yet Farage also conceded the language caught on camera of
two of his closest aides talking about donations was “injudicious at
best”. Reading from his notes, he added: “We take compliance
extremely seriously”.
Was that a twin-track message? Perhaps he was trying to
communicate to both his base of supporters, and also the wider audience of
potential Reform voters he’ll need if he is to get into government.
Image source, Reuters
Elsewhere in the speech, Farage laid out his party’s significant successes over the past year – including high-profile defection and victories in May’s English local, Scottish and Welsh elections.
We saw a roll call of his long-term campaign messages: “Britain is broken”, “Britain needs Reform”, and “we will stop the boats”.
The was some new policy about how he’d declare a “national emergency” on day one of a Reform-led government with parliament potentially sitting “24 hours a day” and “six days a week”.
But Farage seemed to have decided to leave much of his party’s policy announcements to the speeches of his colleagues Robert Jenrick, Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf. These will continue tomorrow.
There was also a more-detailed attack on Andy Burnham than we’ve previously seen from Reform. Farage attempted to frame the new administration as a “continuity government”, and said that the creation of Number 10 North would mean “bigger government, more taxes and more failure”.
Nigel Farage’s speech then ended rather abruptly. It was shorter, and more off-the-cuff than expected. The party members seemed to enjoy it, but amid a barrage of wider questions about the party’s finances, it is unlikely to draw a line under the significant problems now facing the Reform UK leader.