The Reform party conference: what a Farage government would mean for housing, investment and ‘net-stupid-zero’

I am waiting for a panel discussion called “Drill Baby Drill: Abandoning Net Zero and Restoring Energy Abundance” to start when an email pops up from Reform HQ. “10 MINUTE WARNING,” says the subject line, before explaining that the leader’s address has been brought forward by three hours in a last-minute schedule change and is now not taking place at 4pm on Friday afternoon, as listed in the brochure, but at 1pm.

Cue a mad dash to the main auditorium, past crowds of attendees walking in the opposite direction who are apparently unaware – as are staff – that the conference’s main event is about to take place. 

And so it is, 10 minutes later, the lights suddenly dim in the vast arena of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. Trumpets blare out of speakers as the surprised crowd rises to its feet.

At the back of the stage, a panel emblazoned with the slogan “The Next Step” rises upwards, revealing a dark passage filled with smoke. And, walking out, like a contestant on Stars in Their Eyes and with showbiz flair worthy of Donald Trump, is the man they had all been waiting for – Nigel Farage – dressed in a bright teal suit and a tie with a design of a staircase leading upwards – or down, depending on your perspective – surrounded by whooshing jets of sparkles and smoke, waving and pretending to point at members of the audience.

The noise from the crowd is deafening. “Well,” he says when the cheering dies down, “it has been a day of some considerable news.”

An hour earlier, housing secretary and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner had announced her resignation. Her sudden departure, coming after a report found she had ignored warnings from lawyers about the amount of stamp duty she should pay on a second home in Hove, immediately took the media limelight away from Reform.

The cabinet reshuffle which followed – replacing home secretary Yvette Cooper with justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, an anti-woke hardliner, and Mahmood with foreign secretary David Lammy, who was replaced by Cooper – was far more extensive than anyone expected, dashing any hope Reform had that its biggest-ever event would lead the day’s news. 

“The reason I have moved this speaking time forward is because the government is in deep crisis,” Farage told the audience. “I did not want the prime minister to do anything to spoil our conference, and that is why I have come onstage now to say they are not fit to govern.”

The Tories fared little better, being described by Farage as “dead” (quoting former Conservative culture secretary Nadine Dorries who had defected to Reform the day before), although, given the state of the party’s poll ratings, they were probably just relieved to get a mention. “But, in the middle of this meltdown of these two parties that have dominated British politics for 100 years, there is a new, strong, unified party that speaks with one voice,” Farage continued.

Nigel and Reform are our last chance to save Britannia. Nigel will be PM

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, Conservative defector

The energy, the optimism and the confidence in the room was electrifying, only briefly dimmed by Dorries’ rather flat-footed speech (“I’m sorry if I wasn’t the one to pump up the audience,” she said sheepishly as Farage guided her off stage).  

Earlier, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, another Conservative defector, had delivered the conference’s most unhinged moment when she bounded on stage singing “I’m an insomniac”, a song she had written herself some 20 years ago. “Nigel and Reform are our last chance to save Britannia,” she yelled, before inviting the audience to stand and chant “Nigel will be PM”.

The next day I spotted the former skills minister, and now mayor for Greater Lincolnshire, literally sprinting through the conference hall in a blue dress and gold pumps, leaping onto a stage and explaining to an alarmed-looking panel of speakers: “I made it just in time!”

I have been to two Labour conferences and both, in comparison, were about as electric as a parish council waste management meeting. Even Reform’s previous events lacked this year’s level of demented elan.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US elections has clearly had a big influence, both in substance and style, including in what appear to be an HQ-approved series of nicknames. “Net-stupid-zero”, “HS-stupid-2” and its “batshit batshed”, “Mad Ed Miliband” and “Poison Dwarf” Sadiq Khan, were all doing the rounds.

This is a party “on the rise”, in Farage’s words, but it is also a party that is maturing. Six years ago, at the height of the turmoil over Brexit, I reported on a rally of the Brexit Party, the outfit set up by Farage in 2018 which was renamed Reform UK in 2021.

It was much the same in terms of energy – Farage memorably received two standing ovations from the audience before he had even opened his mouth to speak – but the audience was older, whiter and more working class. Those people are still here now, and just as much devoted to Farage, but they have been joined by new demographic of cohorts.

Reform’s voter base is very different now to what it was in 2024. It is much closer to the average Briton

Luke Tryl, director, More in Common

Party strategists are in the process of building a broad coalition, according to Luke Tryl, director of focus group consultant More in Common, at an event on the first day of the conference. A growing number of soft left, Blairite-minded voters are edging towards Reform, while women, typically those in later middle age, are flocking to the party as well – its membership is now 1.2 men per one woman, a more equal balance than the membership of the Labour party, according to More in Common.

All of this has happened in the past few months. “Reform’s voter base is very different now to what it was in 2024. It is much closer to the average Briton,” says Tryl.

That is not to say that those hoping to see an array of Union Jack-print clothing at the conference were in any way disappointed. Waistcoats seemed to be the most popular choice, although I also saw plastic hats, a cape andan entire group of men in matching three-piece suits.

The difference now is that, in the words of political scientist Anand Menon, speaking beneath the largest Union Jack I have ever seen at an event on The Britannia Stage, “Reform has become mainstream”.

So, what would a Reform government mean for construction? Firstly, the prospect is a real possibility. The party is currently enjoying poll leads of between 10 and 15 percentage points over Labour, its nearest rival. If there was an election tomorrow, Reform would almost certainly win.

Farage has told his team to prepare for a general election in 2027, which, given Keir Starmer’s waning fortunes and the growing prospect that he might be toppled, no longer looks like mere wishful thinking.

While Reform’s support has been driven by public dismay at the uncontrolled immigration crisis, it is also feeding on a wider backlash against anything deemed “woke” or progressive. Aside from promising to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, the two topics which elicited the loudest cheers during the conference were scrapping net zero and cutting red tape. 

The penny is dropping with people. Industries are being destroyed in front of our eyes, and it is absolutely disgraceful

Richard Tice, Reform deputy leader

The party is clear that it would cut subsidies for renewable energy and unleash development in fossil fuels, from fracking to coal mining and North Sea oil. According to deputy leader Richard Tice, it is already lining up potential bidders to save the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire.

“The penny is dropping with people,” Tice told the conference in his main address. “Industries are being destroyed in front of our eyes, and it is absolutely disgraceful.” 

All of this plays to the party’s traditional voter base – communities still scarred by deindustrialisation – but it also aims to promote economic growth by reducing the UK’s energy costs, which are the highest in the developed world. Reform is also looking at potential tax cuts to incentivise business and housing development, including lower rates for schemes on brownfield land. 

At one panel event focused on growth, Tice, a former property developer and chief executive of CLS Holdings from 2010 to 2014, suggested a Reform government would loosen requirements for affordable housing. “For too many housebuilders, it’s no longer viable and you’ve got to be sensible about affordable housing,” he said. “The reality is, 50% of nothing is nothing. 20% of something is something.”

He also called for a simplification of the way affordable housing quotas are hammered out with councils, arguing that the time, money and effort spent negotiating viability programmes around affordable housing “is just insane. It’s bonkers. We’ve got to be much simpler and come up with a number, a formula that everybody understands, that cuts all of that out.”

With the election potentially four years away, much of this policy is still at the discussion stage. The development of a full programme is being overseen by the party’s policy chief Zia Yusuf, a former entrepreneur who sold his concierge business for £233m in 2023.

People are so sick of politicians who won’t challenge the status quo because they’re worried they’ll lose their seats

Laila Cunningham, Reform candidate for London mayoral election, 2028

In a conversation with former housing secretary Michael Gove (now the editor of The Spectator), Yusuf outlined his vision to fill half of Reform’s first cabinet with policy experts rather than MPs.

These experts would be put in front of voters at the next election and appointed to the House of Lords if the party forms a government. “Some of the people we’re already speaking to I’d categorise as galactic level talent,” Yusuf claimed, adding that they were being courted with the promise that they would be given an entire term short of them “doing something absolutely egregious”.

Given that the party has already lost two of its original five MPs since last year’s election, one due to alleged bullying and the other over business dealings during the covid pandemic (both deny the allegations), there are potential questions over how well this might work in practice.

Many previous contenders for government have criticised the carousel of ministers who have not always been as qualified for the roles they briefly hold as the public might expect, with housing being a key example. The reality is that ministerial appointments are a lever for maintaining party discipline and passing over new MPs for non-politicians from the Lords would be a very unusual move.

But Yusuf insists the party is serious: “The definition of insanity is when you keep on doing the same thing and expecting a different result. We are going to do different things.”

There is no doubt that Reform currently enjoys huge momentum and is feeding off public exhaustion with the failure of the two main parties to fix Britain’s woes. “People are so sick of politicians who won’t challenge the status quo because they’re worried they’ll lose their seats,” Laila Cunningham, Reform’s candidate for the 2028 London mayoral election, told the conference.

Reform is certainly challenging the current status quo – but times change. If Starmer manages to stop the flow of people illegally crossing the English Channel, Reform will lose a big driver of its support, while an improving economy could erode it further.

But all of the party’s Trump-inspired campaigning antics disguise an operation which has become much more serious over the past few months, one which for the first time could conceivably survive without Farage. The leader’s previous stab at the establishment with the Brexit Party was quickly outmanoeuvred by Boris Johnson, who adopted many of the same ideas during the 2019 general election campaign. As with Starmer’s increasingly hardline approach to migrants, that could happen again.

With Reform’s support growing so quickly, however, it is starting to look like Britain will need to address the Farage phenomenon – one way or another.