How Reform is channelling Maga to try and make Farage Prime Minister ...Middle East

When Nigel Farage launched Reform UK’s local election campaign at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena last month, the carnival-like atmosphere felt strangely familiar.

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.

That slogan also featured when Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, called out to the crowd: “Do you want to make Britain great again?”

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.

All in all, the rally was the most explicit example yet of Reform emulating the “Make America Great Again” movement which swept Donald Trump back to power in last November’s US presidential election.

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.

He is also said to be closely watching the “fallout” of his friend’s policies across the Atlantic as he draws up Reform’s own blueprint for government.

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.

But a British version of Maga is not without risks, with some voter warning that they find Farage’s association with Trump off-putting.

‘It’s all about realignment’

Farage’s ambitions are sky high, with the Reform leader insisting he can become Britain’s next prime minister.

While the party currently only has four seats, it is neck-and-neck in the lead with Labour in the polls. Given the quirks of Britain’s electoral system, relatively small shifts in the vote could make the difference between Reform remaining a third party, leap-frogging the Conservatives as the main opposition, or even, conceivably, ending up as the biggest party.

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.

Farage sees Reform as the torchbearers in Britain for the global right-wing populist force which Trump embodies. Last month, he said: “Trump’s victory in America shows you where western civilisations are going”.

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.

Wigmore now works for the US lobbying firm Gunster Strategies and is a frequent visitor to Washington DC. In January, he helped organise a Trump inauguration night party where Farage was the guest of honour.

He argues that Farage is harnessing the same disaffection with politics-as-usual which Trump tapped into.

“It’s all about realignment,” Wigmore said. “What does realignment mean? You’ve got a lot of middle America that were disaffected with if you want to call it, ‘the Uniparty’ [traditional Democrats and Republicans].

“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.

“This is where Nigel is smart, because he’s got a great antenna, he’s seen this.”

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.

Wigmore said: “When [Farage] says ‘look, I’m going to park my tanks on the Labour lawn’, it’s because the Red Wall, they don’t care whether its red, blue or purple they have lost all loyalties to the parties, and they’re looking for somebody in the same way they did in middle America. They’re just looking for somebody that will represent their frustrations.

“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.

“Those are the similarities and they’re real.”

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.

In a bid to woo union members who have traditionally voted Labour, Farage likewise struck an emollient tone during his County Durham speech when he said he wanted “a good partnership with the unions” (although he made an exception for the National Education Union and “other leftwing teaching unions”, whom he vowed to “go to war” against).

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.

“There is no such thing as Labour heartlands or Tory shires anymore… people aren’t looking at colours and tribalisms of parties to represent what they feel.”

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.

“Could we learn something from that? You bet we can, and I can tell you, Nigel and his team will be monitoring the fallout of all of these things that are coming out of Trump 2.0,” he said.

“[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.”

He said that if Farage realised his dream of entering Number 10 in 2029 then he will follow Trump’s example of appointing outsiders to key government positions.

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.

Wigmore said: “Let’s say Nigel was prime minister in four years’ time, the type of people he would bring in to run departments are not political.

“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.”

However, there are some people who know Farage well who think the idea that he is aping Trump is overdone.

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.

But he insisted that Reform’s rallies and campaigning style are not a Maga innovation.

“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.”

He argues that the equation of Farage’s public events with the Maga rallies is a case of “recency bias”. “We’ve always done them. We were doing rallies and big public meetings in 2010,” he said.

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.

But Towler thinks those employed by Farage reflect a quintessentially British sensibility.

In one TikTok video during the general election, Farage was seen inspecting a greengrocer’s wares before remarking to the camera, “lovely melons!”.

“He’s not channelling Trump, he’s channelling Sid James,” Towler said. “It’s very Nigel, very self-deprecating.

“There’s an Englishness about that that’s not American at all… it’s not Trumpian.”

Even in areas where Farage has consciously echoed Maga – such as promising “a Doge for every single county council in England” (despite Musk’s public criticism of him) – Towler thinks “it’s American packaging on something we’d have done anyhow”.

‘Trumpian’ attitude to the press

One area where Reform does seem to have taken notes from Trump is in their engagement with the press.

The party’s dealings with the media have become more combative of late.

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.

A source close to the party told The i Paper that the attitude to the press had become “more Trumpian”, which they are concerned is counterproductive.

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.

“We don’t have Joe Rogan, we don’t have the reach in this country,” they said. “Okay so [Farage] gets a lot of pickup from his TikTok, a lot of pickup from his other social media, but it’s still a tiny proportion of the electorate.”

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.

“The right-wing online ecosystem is much more right-wing than we are,” they said. “In Trump’s world, they would all be supporting Trump, in our world they’re all attacking us.”

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.

In Runcorn and Helsby, where Reform are trying to oust Labour in a by-election which is being viewed as a bellwether, voters told The i Paper that they found Farage’s relationship with Trump off-putting.

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.

“I don’t like Trump at all. I think he’s an idiot. I agree with a lot of the policies with Farage, but because he’s taking his side that’s what’s put me off voting for him.”

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.”

The real challenge for Farage might be to mount a Trump-style political insurgency without voters thinking of Trump.

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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