What Nigel Farage’s new team tells us about his bid to run Britain

LONDON — Reform UK is not a one-man band anymore. At least, that’s what Nigel Farage wants you to think.

The leader of Britain’s populist right-wing party named four politicians to lead on key policy areas on Tuesday, after months of deliberate ambiguity about who does what in his top team.

At a made-for-TV event in Westminster’s Church House — where Tony Blair addressed Labour MPs after his 1997 landslide — Farage promised an economic “super department” modelled on German rebuilding after World War 2, led by his deputy Richard Tice.

Recent Conservative Party defectors Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman will lead on the Treasury brief and education, skills and equalities respectively, while millionaire donor Zia Yusuf, Reform’s head of policy, will focus on home affairs and migration.

Farage gave all four “shadow” government job titles, despite British convention reserving these only for the party of parliamentary opposition (the Conservatives). But his upstart party’s poll lead — and instability in the center-left Labour government — mean pressure has been growing for him to color in the lines of his plan for Britain.

The message so far embodies the tension at the heart of Reform’s pitch to voters — be radical enough to inspire right-leaning voters but safe enough to keep their vote; give enough detail to look serious but not tie itself up in knots; and be Farage-focused enough to benefit from his stardust without turning into a one-man show.

Here, POLITICO looks at what today’s line-up shows about Farage’s plan for government.

1) Reform is still more a campaigning force than a government-in-waiting

Farage insists Britain could get a snap general election in 2027, but his choice of priorities today — zoning in on hot-button issues such as migration, net zero and gender — shows a party focused more on contentious debate than the quiet, boring work of government.

This is in stark contrast to Labour, which tried to avoid ideological spats in 2023 and 2024 in favor of technocratic preparations for power (which Labour officials later complained were a disaster).

Much of this is just basic political strategy. Polls show Reform’s lead, while still substantial, has narrowed in recent months and there are more votes in migration and economic policies than in having spokespeople on foreign affairs or defense (both roles remain unfilled).

Some things will also take time. Reform’s policy teams have long been thinly-staffed, though the party hired 25 new staff at its London HQ who started in January, said two people briefed on the detail (and granted anonymity to speak freely). A third person briefed on the details said the party is planning to work up detailed energy and business policies in time for its conference in September.

But ultimately, Farage focuses on issues such as migration and supposed liberal creep because he feels strongly about them, and has done so for decades. His choices today show Britain will have a more radical, ideologically-driven government if he is prime minister.

Robert Jenrick said taxes are “clearly too high” and promised to “build an economy that serves alarm clock Britain” — people who get up early for work — but was thin on the detail of any specific tax cuts. | Leon Neal/Getty Images

2) The rubber will start hitting the road

Farage and his allies announced a blizzard of policy ideas, but without firm decisions or timings, and questions will now grow about how Reform will get there and when.

Tice said he wants GDP growth of 3 to 4 percent per year and to bury “net stupid zero” climate rules. He vowed to work up an industrial strategy focused on areas such as steel and car-making, and promised a “British sovereign wealth fund,” with more details to be unveiled next week.

All this will require trade-offs. Tice wants to strip away regulation; the property tycoon questioned in November whether 30,000 pages of EU-derived financial sector rules could be stripped back to 100 pages. But at the same time, Reform does not rule out state involvement in strategic heavy industries. (Farage denied this would be “socialism.”)

Likewise, Jenrick said taxes are “clearly too high” and promised to “build an economy that serves alarm clock Britain” — people who get up early for work — but was thin on the detail of any specific tax cuts.

Fundamental questions about the shape of policy or the economy under Reform have yet to be answered. Four groups are due to finish work in May on regulation, growth capital, pensions and savings, and tax. Farage and Tice have toyed with the idea of scrapping the “triple lock” (which guarantees large increases in the state pension) but have not reached a conclusion. Braverman said 50 percent of young people should enter manual trades, while Tice has suggested a complete overhaul of pensions for public sector workers; these policies are yet to be fleshed out.

At the same time, Farage’s appointees have their hands full — especially Tice, whose theoretical super-department would cover business, trade, energy and housing policy. He is also still in charge of Reform’s cost-cutting efforts in local councils.

Some basic questions about personnel remain unanswered, too. Yusuf did not clarify at Tuesday’s event whether his role as “head of policy” remains intact. And as neither an MP nor a member of the House of Lords, Yusuf — a tech-investing millionaire — will not be required to declare his outside interests while running Reform’s home affairs policy, which could lead to more scrutiny of him personally.

3) Farage is fighting hard in the culture wars

Farage and his allies continue to take a leaf out of U.S. President Donald Trump’s book, doling out hardline policies and rhetoric on contentious issues — and picking strategic fights with journalists.

Yusuf reiterated Reform’s plan for mass deportations, calling recent immigration the “most profound betrayal of the British electorate in history,” claiming people have “literally died” as a result. He promised that the U.K. would not just leave the European Convention on Human Rights, but “derogate from every international treaty that would otherwise then be used to frustrate and upend deportations.” That could be a long list.

Braverman said “social transitioning” for gender-questioning children — where they change their pronouns, clothes or name — would be “absolutely banned in all schools, no ifs, no buts.” She also said Reform would abolish the equalities department “on day one,” repeal the 2010 Equality Act and abolish the “pernicious, divisive notion of protected characteristics,” which set down the terms of workplace discrimination in law.

While these policies bear similarities with the Conservative Party, they are designed to go a step further and show that Reform is serious about tearing up many of the agreed-upon rules that have underpinned British policy and politics for decades.

4) … But he’s also desperate to win voters’ trust

Reform’s whole strategy on the economy is to reassure voters that it can be credible. Farage tore up £90 billion of promised tax cuts from his party’s 2024 manifesto in the name of fiscal credibility, despite saying today that he wants to upend the “prevailing economic orthodoxy” of the last few decades.

Tice was a Conservative until 2019 and Yusuf only left the party in 2024. There could be more defectors to come, given the defense and foreign affairs jobs have been conspicuously left open. | Carlos Jasso/AFP via Getty Images

The Conservative Party sensed this weakness last fall and moved to position itself as the reliable choice on the economy. Reform strategists know that it is one of the Tories’ advantages in polling, and a vulnerability in their own reputation that must be patched.

They will partly know this because Jenrick himself was a prominent Tory until only a few weeks ago. The new “shadow chancellor” — who will re-state his own reassurance message in a press conference on Wednesday — said in September that he was “terrified” of a financial crash on the scale of 2008. Today, he promised a “government in waiting that can be trusted with the economy” and will work up policy in conversation with business.

Hence, the details of any tax cuts under Reform remain vague and will be a key point of tension if Farage ever enters Downing Street. The leader said today that he “might” support tax breaks for people who have “quite a few children.” If he were PM, that sort of comment would lead news bulletins for days. Tice has called for “mad ideas” from the business community to support his deregulation drive.

There are other areas where Reform wants to reassure. In her vision of the education system, Braverman promoted the Michaela Community School in north-west London, which the Tories have repeatedly looked to for inspiration. And Farage has long distanced himself from the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, knowing of his toxicity with center-ground voters.

Perhaps the biggest bid at reassurance is hauling in former Tories. Jenrick and Braverman defected recently. Thatcherite Tice was a Conservative until 2019 and Yusuf only left the party in 2024. There could be more defectors to come, given the defense and foreign affairs jobs have been conspicuously left open.

5) The ‘one-man band’ charge is sticking

Farage used the event to show that his party will have “a little bit less of me,” in his words: “If I was hit by a bus tomorrow, Reform has its own brand, Reform has its own identity.”

Yet Farage has always struggled to shake off his own fame and done little to dispel it. Of the five lecterns arranged in a V-shape, his was the most prominent, central and closest to the audience. He repeatedly answered questions that were directed at his colleagues, and joked that if they are “disloyal,” they “won’t be here very long.”

While Farage is more an electoral strategist than a deep policy thinker, some believe his picks simply reinforce his dominance over his party (for now). For example, Yusuf has so far focused much of his energy on tech and economic policy, while Jenrick has not held an economic brief for several years.

One senior figure involved in Reform said of Jenrick’s appointment: “It’s a clear sign by Nigel that he doesn’t want an imperial chancellor like Gordon Brown or George Osborne. This is a statement that growth policy is going to be driven out of the business department.”

There are plenty more appointments to come. But quite simply, there won’t be room in the spotlight for everyone — and much of that spotlight is taken up by Farage himself. 

James Orr, a senior advisor to Farage, perhaps put it best last September, saying: “Don’t underestimate how much effect a small band of dedicated people in the cockpit of the nation can do.”

That cockpit just got a little bigger; now Reform just has to decide who is at the controls.

Noah Keate and Andrew McDonald contributed reporting.