Bigger, Bolder and ‘Tealier’: Reform UK 26 was a party conference like no other.  This wasn’t so much a party conference in the traditional British sense; it was more like a US political convention or festival – with Boney M as the headliners – seriously!

The scale was immense.  You could probably fit the entire auditorium of every other mainstream party into the cavernous auditorium here, with room to spare. Overall, the 2026 Reform UK Conference at the NEC in Birmingham was twice as big as the previous edition. It was symbolic of a party growing at breakneck speed.  And it was therefore only fitting that Barndoor Strategy’s presence also doubled.

Controversy

Held straight after the summer break and while Parliament was still sitting to outside observers it seemed that the Reform UK conference was overshadowed by the Channel 4 documentary alleging Reform UK officials has been seeking illegal foreign donations.

Having sacked two of his closest aides, including respected academic James Orr, it was unsurprising that every other journalist question at the event was about donations.  No doubt, losing such key personnel is a blow to the Reform machine. But that certainly didn’t come across in Birmingham. It all felt like water off a duck’s back for delegates.

Reform UK supporters in Birmingham or elsewhere across the UK don’t seem to care much about such things, when the party continues to offer solutions to what they see as the major problems facing the country.  With the exception of the rather sombre queue signing a book of condolence for the late Ann Widdecombe, the mood in Birmingham was buoyant and optimistic

The same was true of the protestors who stole a few headlines. Their noisy disruptions did little to throw Nigel Farage off track in his speech.  Farage has dealing with hecklers down to a fine art.  Alas so it seems, have some of the delegates, with images of walking sticks being brandished against interlopers featuring prominently on social media. Whilst Reform UK’s opponents might throw-up their hands in horror.  Reform UK members seem to think the protestors had their just desserts.

Growing pains

As is the norm at Reform Conference, the main Stage here was a massive and well-attended arena with thousands of occupied seats. Labour and Conservative Junior Ministers would give their right arm for such exposure as that received by luminaries including Welsh Leader Dan Thomas MS or the doughty London Mayoral contender Leila Cunningham.

Scattered seemingly at random around the enormous National Exhibition Centre hangers, there were a number of fringe theatres, (although most not as well used as is the case at other conferences); an expanded media centre; a councillors’ area with multiple corporate sponsors. In contrast to the other parties, there were also a profusion of much needed food and drink outlets.

The Reform UK shop did a roaring trade (£20 for a Nigel Farage tea towel anyone?) Although it has to be said, there were times when the venue all felt a bit empty and communication about changes to the timetable and events such as the afterparty (featuring the legendary Boney M no less) were hard to find. Notable also were the very high aesthetic standards of the conference.  Considerable care and attention had been given to everything from the signage to the enormous teal-coloured carpets that swathed the vast exhibition space.

This was a recurrent theme and a headache for corporate sponsors.  Many events ran massively late.   Richard Tice arriving an hour late to the MakeUK’s fringe was path the course.  Conducted through the medium of wireless headphones, Tice nevertheless communicated eloquently to the audience why “Net-Stupid-Zero” as he has termed it, was bad; seemingly to universal agreement in the room.

This year, there was a bigger fringe programme. Heavyweight Danny Kruger MP in particular worked hard to build a coherent policy platform for Reform UK.  Judging by what Barndoor Strategy saw, Kruger has become indispensable to Reform in this regard.

Battle Ready?

The Conference theme this year was ‘The First 100 Days’ with key speakers announcing new policies and making personal commitments. Robert Jenrick MP pledged to raise the income tax threshold to £15,000, Richard Tice will resign if he hasn’t reduced energy bills by £250, and Nigel Farage pledged to have Parliament sitting around the clock 6 days a week to pass all the legislation they have planned.

There is no doubt there is a confidence within the Reform UK ranks that the next election is winnable.  Adopting this theme also strongly implies that Reform UK are expecting an early election. They think they are ready – although the absence of confirmed candidates and a policy platform that, at this stage, can best be described as skeletal, suggests there is still much work to be done.

The self-styled ‘People’s Army’ who were out in force here clearly were not troubled by such things. They are confident of victory and while the message wasn’t exactly, ‘Go back to your constituencies and prepare for Government,” the parallels to the SDP in the 1980s were readily apparent.

There is no question that Reform UK has already ‘broken the mold’ of British politics.  Reform UK didn’t exist five years ago. It now has 8 MPs, 2,300 councillors, over 270,000 members, and is the main opposition in both Wales and Scotland. It is a remarkable achievement to have grown to the size and influence that they are so fast.  Yet they still do not feel like quite the finished article yet.

The key message taken from this event, is that Reform UK want to present themselves as the party that, unlike Labour and the Conservatives, will actually do things to tackle problems rather than just talk about them. This came up again and again – with council cost-cutting and pothole filling cited as examples.

Yet their main pledges are still just words at the moment. The ‘First 100 Days’ commitments sound great but reshaping the British state to make it functional and affordable is inevitably going to take a lot longer than that.

As Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson discovered in their time, saying something and doing it are very different things. It remains to be seen if Reform UK can convince enough people that they can do what they claim, to be given a chance to put their ideas to the test and for Nigel Farage to be the UK’s ‘Daddy Cool’.