Riding onto the stage on a JCB, the Reform leader was cheered by thousands of party activists, including some wearing “make Britain great again” caps.
And in his own speech, Farage told the assembled throng: “We need a British form of Doge” – a reference to Elon Musk’s Department for Government Efficiency which is slashing US public spending.
Allies of Farage tell The i Paper that he wants to tap into a British version of the political “realignment” among disaffected middle American voters which delivered the White House for the Republicans.
For example, Farage would follow Trump’s lead in appointing mavericks from outside of politics to key positions in government and the civil service, The i Paper has been told.
Nigel Farage puts on a Reform UK hat at Westpoint Arena during the party’s South West conference (Photo: Finnbarr Webster/Getty)
‘It’s all about realignment’
Farage’s ambitions are sky high, with the Reform leader insisting he can become Britain’s next prime minister.
With his eyes on Downing Street, it is no surprise that Farage is drawing inspiration from another politician whose political chances were once scorned.
Farage has shared a close friendship with Trump since 2016, when he appeared with him on the stump to support his first tilt for the presidency.
Andy Wigmore, one of the self-described “Bad Boys of Brexit” who worked with Farage on the Leave.EU campaign to exit the European Union, said that Reform are trying to replicate the long-term planning undertaken by the Maga movement in the run-up to Trump’s 2024 victory.
He argues that Farage is harnessing the same disaffection with politics-as-usual which Trump tapped into.
“You’ve got the same thing in the UK – people are fed up with the cost of living, fed up with immigration, fed up with net zero, and so the loyalties that people used to have, they’re now gone.
Nigel Farage praises US President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Phoenix Goodyear Airport on October 28, 2020, in Goodyear, Arizona. (Photo: Getty Images)
Earlier this week, Reform held a local election campaign event in County Durham which Farage said was him parking “tanks on the lawns of the Red Wall”. It came as polling by Survation for the Sun suggested that Reform is leading in the North and Midlands.
“It’s passed the point of a protest vote, they are now looking to Reform as a potential answer, as they were looking for Trump 2.0 as a potential answer.
In America, Trump has forged unusual political alliances for a Republican. Unveiling his “Liberation Day” tariffs earlier this month, he was joined on the White House lawn by a group from the United Auto Workers union.
Wigmore said it was another lesson which Farage had learned from Maga. “What Trump did in 2.0, he was able to galvanise a coalition of people and ideas around him which weren’t necessarily what you would think about the traditional left or right,” he said.
Outsiders in key government posts
Wigmore said that Trump’s blizzard of executive orders and policies since returning to the White House is being studied closely by Farage.
“[Farage and Trump] don’t need to talk every day or be in each other’s pockets, because Nigel’s instincts are aligned with Trump’s.”
In Trump’s administration, the Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is a former Fox News pundit and Mehmet Oz – the television physician “Dr Oz” – is the administrator of the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“He would bring businesspeople in, doctors in who have actually been on the frontline, and they are the people that will run these departments. You could literally have a completely new set of permanent secretaries and things like that.”
Gawain Towler, Reform’s former head of press who worked alongside Farage for two decades, admitted that some of Trump’s American “razzmatazz” has brushed off on his ex-boss.
“Farage has always been a public meeting guy and we predate Trump by a long way,” he said. “If anything Trump is a Faragist, not the other way round.”
Like Trump – who rode a garbage truck during the election campaign to highlight a Joe Biden gaffe and enthusiastically donned an apron to serve fries at a McDonald’s – Farage is fond of a stunt.
In one TikTok video during the general election, Farage was seen inspecting a greengrocer’s wares before remarking to the camera, “lovely melons!”.
“There’s an Englishness about that that’s not American at all… it’s not Trumpian.”
‘Trumpian’ attitude to the press
One area where Reform does seem to have taken notes from Trump is in their engagement with the press.
Quizzed by journalists last month about his falling out with the former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, Farage responded with “I’m bored”, exaggerated yawns or by simply ignoring the question asker.
The source said Reform had made the calculation that it can follow Trump in using a “right-wing online ecosystem” to bypass the mainstream media. However, they said this confidence was misplaced because such an ecosystem is less well developed in Britain.
The source also said that much of the Online Right sees Farage as a sellout – as witnessed by the social media backlash when Lowe was expelled from the party.
Anti-Trump voters
An even greater risk is that adopting the trappings of Maga could put off voters, with polls consistently showing that the British public hold a very dim view of Trump.
Joyce Percival, 70, a retired school cook who has always voted Labour but is thinking of backing an independent, said: “I was thinking of voting for Reform, which is Nigel Farage, but he’s in bed for me too much with America, with Trump, so that’s knocked him out of the equation.
Jonathon Brown, a hotel worker, said: “Unfortunately, when it comes to Donald Trump, that seems to be the same way that Nigel Farage and Reform seems to be thinking. So that’s why I’d rather not have Reform here.”
Reform were approached for comment.
Maga-inspired think-tank
People in Farage’s wider orbit are also looking to Maga for ideas. Last month, the Financial Times reported the establishment of a Reform aligned think-tank, provisionally named Resolute 1850 (a reference to the Royal Navy ship, HMS Resolute, whose timbers were used to make the US president’s desk in the Oval Office.)
The think-tank is being headed up by Jonathan Brown, Reform’s former chief operating officer, has office space in Millbank Tower where Reform is headquartered, and according to a presentation seen by the paper is targeting funding from “US donors from MAGA”.
It is believed to be modelled on US bodies that are independently funded but back political parties, such as the Center for Renewing America and the America First Policy Institute that support Trump.
The document seen by the FT said it would “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal” to “change opinion around key issues and provide technocratic competence”.
However, in a later interview with the paper, Brown said that it is “not simply a Reform think-tank” and that its purpose is “not to simply import the American model without adaptation to the UK”.
Resolute 1850 were contacted for comment.
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