A tale of two conferences

“I’m Matt Goodwin and I want my country back!” was an unexpectedly thunderous ending for an 11am think tank seminar, a bit more suited to a battle line than a policy panel, but it drew the loudest cheer I’d hear all day. The bar at the centre of the cavernous Birmingham NEC had raised its shutters just an hour earlier, and by the time I’d got through the monster queues at 10:15, a few attendees, bedecked in Union Jack bucket hats and FARAGE 10 football shirts were already working through their second pints. While some complained that Reform is going to need more than a bit of tub-thumping, Goodwin seemed to have perfectly tapped the pulse of the crowd. 

The room was enormous, and practically empty. People were clustered around a makeshift square of two bars and two hot-dog/burger stands circled by park benches. The impression of the centre was more village fête than governing party-in-waiting. 

People drifted in and out. The rhythm of the day seemed to be stumbling from the central boozing area to the main stage to see reform grandees like Farage arrive with a wave of pyrotechnics, before shuffling back to the center for another round and wandering into a seminar on energy reform or tax policy. There was a palpable sense of optimism in the air, a shared assumption that this is the next party of government. But there was something about the atmosphere that didn’t quite cohere. Slick men in tailored navy suits with gelled-back hair were rubbing shoulders with punters in sunglasses and beach-ready flag capes, it was both boardroom and Benidorm.

Some people looked remarkably comfortable with both, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, just a few minutes after appearing on stage in a sparkling jumpsuit, was sitting on a centre for policy studies panel in a business fit, discussing Britain’s broken governance systems. She was there alongside new board member Gawain Towler, whose unique dress sense and habit of performing feats of running and leaping in the pub have earned him significant endearment, and a place as a kind of mascot for the older generation of Ukippers. The full panel, including some impressive policy minds in Robert Colvile and Alex Morton of the CPS and Sam Lister, editor of the Daily Express, fielded questions that spanned from MPs trending towards being social workers, their remuneration, the structure of the House of Lords, and discussed how incoming ministers might be trained in tactics at a “Reform academy” to combat the tricky and everpresent “blob”. At one point a posh elderly man wearing a £2,500 “VIP” badge took the microphone to complain that he’d sent his son to an expensive private school, only for him to “turn into a Muslim.” 

Other panels discussed how Reform might have to crush the unions within 6 months of taking office in the event of a general strike, or how quickly our energy system could be dismantled and rebuilt if we finally gave up on Net zero. I didn’t manage to catch Zia’s mass deportation talk, but I did overhear a man in jeans say Zia was “alright” afterwards, and two men in suits arrive at the conclusion that it was a good enough start that won’t spook the electorate.

What was perhaps most striking, though, was who wasn’t there. For a movement projected to decisively take power if an election were called tomorrow, the business world seems peculiarly uninterested. The exhibition stalls were threadbare: a bullion company decked out with images of Farage, holding various gold coins. A crypto outfit no one I asked had heard of (and the name of which I can’t remember now to even google), and a lone printing company manning a table with a single employee and printer. The biggest noticeable sponsor in the hall was First, with a few stationary buses parked as meeting room space. For a party laying out ideas on immigration, tax, and energy that would radically shift the economic model of the country if even half implemented, the business absence was noticeable. Amongst the attendees, the most notable corporate presence was a woman from Octopus Energy, asking at more than one panel how Reform could help them become the UK’s first trillion-pound company.

I was struggling to communicate what lesson the conference had given me until I arrived back at my hotel. The Reform establishment seems to be at the Hilton, while I’ve found myself at a similar hotel just down the road along with the journalists, campaigners, public affairs people and the rest of the metapolitical professionals.

Some commentators will say Reform doesn’t yet know whether it wants to be a radical party of government or a party in the pub. Today it was both

In the corner of the bar there was a rather overweight man in a turquoise cap and tracksuit bottoms sitting alone at a table, nursing a can of lager. Another man I’d spotted earlier near the conference BBC stand was side-eying him with thinly veiled disgust. I found myself wondering if his focus on the offensive aesthetics of the interloper had left him unaware that he was likely missing some quite radical conversations just a few buildings away. 

My impression is that political types will see this event as too incoherent, too unserious, too camp. But many people here claim to have never been to any political conference before, and they really were having a good time. I overheard one woman excitedly point out Gawain Towler, telling her friend that he’s taller than he looks on TV. I suspect some commentators will say Reform doesn’t yet know whether it wants to be a radical party of government or a party in the pub. Today it was both, and a final accounting of this decade might show that appearing as one thing is what allowed it to smuggle in the other.