How to write about Farage

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0:38Hello and welcome to this special Saturday edition of Coffeehouse Shots. I'm James Heal and I'm joined today by Nick Tyrone, a former Lib Dem who's written a book on the rise of reform, the inside story of Britain's political disruptors. Nick, welcome. And tell us why you decided this book and why you write it now. Well, so I started writing the book early 2025. I wanted to write the most objective book I possibly could about reform. So I felt like everything that had been written about Nigel Farage or any of his parties had always either been, I mean, there are exceptions to this, but I always felt like most people sort of approach it as like a hit piece, you know, Farage is Hitler, et cetera, et cetera.

1:16Or aren't they great? This is wonderful. The salvation of it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I thought, well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort of enter a reform world. I'm going to try and talk to as many of the MPs and the donors and the people at the top as I can. But also I want to spend as much time as I can with the activists, the local candidates, see what they're like on the ground. Because I want to know what their ground, what they felt like on the ground outside of London. And I'm just going to write what happens. And, you know, if I find whatever I find out there, that's what I will write.

1:43And it fits very much in the vein of kind of people writing about Farage. Because Owen Bennett wrote a similar book following Farage about 10, 11 years ago, I remember reading. I think the point there you make about outside of London is key and I think that inside London I'm a Westminster journalist, I see the Conservative Party in quite good strength, but actually you go outside of London and there are a lot of run down associations and I think that's where you feel maybe in the North and Midlands, certainly with the less locals, reform doing quite well. One of the things that was surprising to me one I really remember is Lincoln so I was in a bit of Lincoln I was following around one of the local reform candidates, really nice guy and we were having a chat and I was just watching him go to door and I write about it in the book.

2:22And the interesting thing to me was this had been a Tory held ward forever and ever and ever. It's sort of on the outskirts of Lincoln, just always had Tory local representatives forever and ever and ever. And what was amazing to me was how few people on the doorstep were saying they were going to vote Tory. You know, the Tories just didn't really come up at all. People were going, well, I might vote Labour, I might vote reform or, oh, I'm going to vote Green or you just didn't hear anything about the Tories. And I thought this is in a place which should be somewhat, there should be some residual Tory vote.

2:53And I found that in a few places. So that was, you're absolutely right. When you go outside of London, you really realise how much the Tories have, you get this Westminster story about they're on the way back and look at Kemi, isn't she doing great? But it does feel like a Westminster story when you go outside of London. I mean, I'm quite struck there. I mean, the argument the Conservatives make is that, you know, the party will bounce back and that this is a kind of one, two-year thing of a five-year parliament where they might return. You obviously come from the Liberal Democrats, you have a history in the party, and there's obviously lots of comparisons made between reform's rise and the SDP's rise and that brief flip balance in 81-82.

3:27What do you think means that reform won't have the same effect and won't kind of go up like a rocket and then come back down again? I think part of it is if you look at the SDP's rise, it was actually very brief. There was this very brief window where the SDP were huge, and everybody likes to cite the 50 % poll whenever it was in late 81. But actually, in looking at the SDP, which I had an a knowledge of, but I studied more in depth to sort of his background of this book. They really had a sort of three, four month period where they were on top of the polls and everything looked great. And then, you know, for a variety of reasons, Falklands was probably pretty big on the list.

4:01They faded and they never really came back. So they had this very brief window. What we're seeing with reform is we saw basically from, you know, at a certain point in spring 2025 until Burnham. So a good year, year and a half, where reform were ahead in the polls, in every single national poll. And actually, that was translated on the ground. Actually, what you saw with the SDP is they never really got the results. You know, they had a lot of hype. They had some polls. One or two by-elections. One or two by-elections, that sort of thing. They sort of fell flat. And they never really did it in the way that you've seen with reform.

4:35For instance, in the 2025 local elections and 2026 local elections, you're seeing something that I think is quite unprecedented. for a party that's kind of come out of nowhere to get thousands and thousands of seats just like that and they've got a much stronger local government base than the sdp ever ever had yes which i think is huge absolutely we'll set them up for that you write in the book you talk about meeting some of the reformers and you talk about some former and current nurses you talk about servicemen the police and i think the polling suggests traditionally the farage's base has been from the upper working and lower middle class background but now they're broadening out and speaking to people in the party they talk about more corporate types more graduates what was the sort of profiled background, the kind of people you were meeting when you were talking to people across the party?

5:15It was very much, I was taken aback by how working class a lot of the activist base is. And if you go to a lot of parts of, say, the Northwest or the Northeast, you actually find a lot of people who were either involved somehow in the Labour Party or their parents were. They come from a very working class Labour background, and they feel like the Labour Party has completely deserted people like them some time ago probably goes back to Blair just they don't care about the working class they're not about the working class they're like a middle class party and I sort of saw that as well repeated the one I really remember is the run corn by-election which really struck me because I spent a few days in the town and the whole center of town was so reformed so that if you like the old working class bit of the constituency was just seemed solidly reformed and then you only really got the labor vote as you went out a bit into the sort of leafy suburbs when you were finally in sort of the nice Cheshire villages and stuff then suddenly everybody's like Labour, Labour, Labour and again coming from London where you see that in London where Labour has sort of become within London the sort of middle class vote although obviously the Greens are starting to eat into that.

6:21I remember doing a column a few years ago talking for the 24 London elections and there was a joke around the Conservative campaign of which was the longer the driveway the less likely they are to vote for you which is quite an interesting inversion of the traditional. I think the class point is key. And I mean, talking sort of crew stereotypes here, it does seem that the kind of residual Tory vote is more of a kind of middle class, waitrose type, respectable tendency, as it were, unlike these areas. I mean, I was going through Clacton, and it sounds like you're being sycophantic when you talk about the reception that Farage gets on the doors there, because people do come up and clasp his hand.

6:53One of the things that comes across from your book is that almost evangelical element. I mean, he's often described as a sort of Billy Graham, but there is this element of faith, which is driving reform, isn't there? Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that you'll find when I went around with reform activists and candidates, I mean, one of the things was everybody who was sort of was saying they were going to vote reform were so enthusiastic about voting reform. And they were the only people who were enthusiastic about voting for anyone. That's what I found. You know, if people said they were voting Labour, it was like, I'm going to vote Labour.

7:20Almost in this resigned kind of, and the few people who said they're voting Tory, same sort of thing, like, well, they've let me down, but, you know, I'm going to stick with them. The only people were going, oh, yeah, I'm going to get out there. I love you guys. And then the flip side of that were people who hated reform, obviously, you know, who were like, you are scum. You are Nazis, you know, screaming, get off my doorstep. So the extremes of that were very interesting. You know, yes, reform are very polarized. But and I think a lot of people tend to look at that in a negative way. You know, there's too polarizing and you're going to get tactical voting against them.

7:50But I think you can say, well, actually, they're the one party that people feel very enthusiastic about, which is something. And also, I mean, the brutal realities of first-past-the-post. You know, I think this is the danger, isn't it? People think, I might like Kami Badenov, but I'm not actually going to motivate to go and vote for her. And then actually, in an electorate where 30 % love you but 70 % hate you, that could be enough to maybe make reform the preeminent party of the right. Absolutely. And I think actually the thing that they really need to do, the difference between them sort of landing in a general election on 25 % and 29%, 30 % will be massive, particularly under first-past-the-post.

8:24Did anything about reform when you were there sort of give you sort of pause for thought about their likelihood of success? I mean, I've heard stories about branches potentially being a bit shambolic. Sometimes maybe they have misrun some of the campaigns over the past 18 months. Was there anything that gave you pause for thought? And not least, of course, because when you started the book, they had that amazing summer where they did with 31, 32 % of the polls, but now they're more sort of 25%. So you've seen a great high, bit down, but as you say, more enduring success than the SDP enjoyed. Yes.

8:52Well, so I would say if I go back to spring 25, the local election campaigns and that sort of stuff, it could, depending on where you were, I mean, and I mostly spent time in places where they ended up doing extraordinarily well. So Lincolnshire and Kent, mostly because they're relatively geographically close and they weren't that difficult for me to get to and back and still do other things. So I spent a lot of time there and I was in 25. I was kind of surprised at how shambolic it was a little bit, you know, how the data wasn't really there, how all that sort of stuff. But I watched over the next year from then on and then getting into the 2026 local elections and things like Gorton and Denton, which I realized they didn't win.

9:32But that was I think that was the best campaign they've run. I agree. Weirdly. I mean, they had dozens of volunteers turning up. I think Matt Goodwin, huge profile help with that. I think so too. And actually how many people they were getting out was really impressive. And actually, again, very targeted leafleting, that thing, you know, by Ward, they had data. So all the activists had a reform kind of app they could get. Reform Pro. Reform Pro, yeah. And it was very, it was very good. It was very rich in terms of the data that they had. And so I think the thing to look at was going from where they were in 2024, which is almost non-existent really as a campaigning force.

10:092025, there's a lot of enthusiasm, but it's a bit ramshackle. To 26, where actually they're getting to the point where they're having an electoral machine, which is at least you can compare to Labour and the Tories. And you write in the book about meeting some of the MPs, Robert Generate, Danny Kruger, Richard Tice. Tell me about those. What sort of impressed you or struck you when you were talking to them? A, that they were very nice in giving of their time. You know, when I first approached Richard Tice about an interview, I sort of assumed it would take a while and he would probably give me like 15, 20 minutes and it would be very cursory.

10:40Instead, it was like, oh, well, let's talk, you know, whatever, a few days from now. And he gave me sort of an hour and a half of his time and a very comprehensive interview. I mean, it's why I've actually kind of got so much of his interview in the book, because actually there was a lot there. And he very kindly went through his whole experience with the party in quite a lot of depth. So that was great. I met Robert Jenrick when he was still a Tory, but he was on the cusp of defecting. So that made it a very, very, very interesting interview for me because if I'd got him after defection, there's any number of things he could say, but what was interesting is he was sort of trying to, you know, you could see...

11:13Hedging. He was hedging. There was all the hints there about him possibly leaving. And I actually interviewed him at a, it was a constituency event in Rishi Sunak's. Oh, Richmond, sorry. Yeah, Richmond, yeah. So I got to see, I got a whole few hours with him to interview him. And then I got to see him in the milieu, as you were, around the Tory activists in Richmond. And what was interesting is at the time he was a real, he was the guy on the pedestal. I mean, they were all like, so many people were coming up to him saying, I wish we hadn't voted for Kemi. You know, we wish you were the leader, all this sort of stuff.

11:48And actually looking at his reaction to that was the thing that really made me think he was going to go. Okay. What was his reaction? Well, just a sort of, he wasn't really leaning into it. It was more like you could see he felt divided. And there was a certain sense of I've got to keep doing these things to keep doing them. And he was very good. Like he gave this great speech. And, you know, it was all very, it was all very professionally done. I just, I having had a few hours with him to kind of get to know him a bit. I felt like I don't think his heart's in this. I think he I think in his mind, he's already, he's already gone to reform.

12:19Was that September, October 2025? 25? Late October. Late October. Makes sense, yeah. By that point, he was already talking to Faraj, yeah. And Danny Kruger as well, obviously, someone hugely regarded in the kind of spectator world as well. Yeah. Being a very preparations to government kind of guy. Again, the thing with my interview with Danny is he was very nice about it. He was very good, gave me an over an hour and a half of his time, really explained what he saw as the priorities for a reformed government and how he felt like he was going to do it. One of the things I wanted to talk to Danny about was the blob, as it were.

12:52You know, reform gets in, there's going to be a whole group of people who are going to want to stand in your way. How are you going to deal with that? And it's detailed because he was very good in the interview. It's detailed a lot in the book. And I thought his answers to that were really good, actually. I was not surprised, but I was impressed by how robust he was in terms of what they would do. When you look at Farage, you know, he's tried three different parties in a sense. UKIP, Brexit Party, now Reform. It does seem that now in 2026 they're in a stronger place than they were 10 years ago.

13:17Why do you think that? It's obviously part of it they've learned from each experience. But also the country, I suppose, is sort of poorer, angrier, more divided than it was. And that fragmentation has allowed for an opening for him. Agreed. I mean, one of the things I do go into in the book is I do talk about the positives of what reform have done and how I think they have done the right things to get to where they are. But I think you have to have context in there as well. And you have to see why people are so angry at the Conservative Party. One of the things I detail is, you know, I was going talking to small business owners, people who were just natural Tories and would have been, you know, members of the one guy who, you know, had a picture of Thatcher on his wall, which I talk about in the book, who was saying, no, I'm not going to vote Tory.

13:55You know, I think we should give Labour a chance because just because we've just feel like the Tories don't represent people like me anymore. So I think the failure of the perceived failure of the Conservative Party and then I think Labour coming in and being so disappointing to people immediately. You know, Starmer being such a letdown. Whatever your view. I mean, the left were let down by people. Well, he's gone now, yeah. He's gone, exactly. It's pretty convincing verdict. Exactly. So I think that the context of that is important to understand the rise of reform. And when you were talking to members, what were the kind of things they were saying?

14:26I mean, I'm really struck when I talk to Conservative members versus Reform members. Conservative members, it's a much more sort of pragmatic, long-term, if you want to call it that. Whereas Reform are more likely to say things like, we've only got one election to save the country. It's very kind of, as I say, evangelical. And I think the arguments I hear most are arguments around national decline, arguments around some kind of invasion or talking about the mass migration that's occurred, both legal and illegal over the past five years or so. And then a sense of maybe high street decline as well.

14:54They can see their local centres getting worse, particularly outside of London, as I say. And I think these are all the kind of things. What were they sort of saying to you, Nick? I mean, I think part of the background is, again, that sort of London versus not London thing. I mean, if you go to Middlesbrough or Harlepool, you just see a very, very different side of Britain than you will ever see, even in the poorest parts of London, I would argue. You know, the sort of the lack of hope, that sort of thing. And, you know, these places are rich with Tory, with, sorry, with reform, not Tory, with reform activists and people who support them and voters.

15:26And I think part of it is that to them, they feel an existential, that's existential to them. They feel like the country's slipping away. They see it all the time. I mean, one of the things I talk about a little bit is migrant hotels. I think having the migrant hotels in some of the poorest communities in the country has been a total disaster. as a... Friction points, yeah. Huge. Because in a way, they're living with it every day. And then they're being told, no, it's just women and children. What are you talking about? And so they sort of feel like their own reality is... Denied? Like gaslighting of a certain kind?

15:58Gaslighting of a certain kind. I agree. So I think that's a big thing for reformed people. And I think why... The number of people who said, oh, I've never really been involved in politics before. It's never really been a thing for me. I might've voted a couple of times in my life, but I never really pay that much attention. But now I've joined reform because I feel like something needs to be done. So I think this idea that all the reform activists are just ex-Tories, they're just annoyed Tories, I think I didn't find that at all, particularly. I just wanted two things, one of which is I think you get more Tories closer to the South and London maybe than in the North.

16:30Yes, I'd agree with that. And I think second of all, maybe there might be a disproportionate number of conservatives among the leaders because of the obvious thing that they had institutional experience. Of course, I'd agree with that as well. People like Lyndon Kim-Karren. Precisely, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you do, on the, that's a fair point. On the candidate side, you do see more people who had some background in politics, usually with the Tories, sometimes Labour. I did meet a lot of, you know, ex-Labour, now-reform candidates. But I was surprised with the activists. There's a lot of people who just weren't really that involved in politics a few years ago who have decided that this is the thing.

17:04And as a final point, Nick, I mean, obviously, Reform have had a bit of an up and down summer. We've got the reconference next week. We'll see how that goes. But what is your prediction for their future? You've looked at the party. You've talked to a lot more people. Where do you think they're going to go over the next 18 months or so? I mean, I think it's down to them. So what I would say is I think if Farage can get things together, if he can somehow park all the internal stuff that's now leaking out into the public, the battles between Zia Yusuf and everybody else in the party, basically. I mean, if he can get that under control and get the sort of vibe being more positive again, I think it's all there for reform.

17:37Because I think the events that are coming up are possibly a second Clacton by-election, which I think Farage would win just as handily. And then the May 2027 elections, which I think, again, we could see there's just a massive amount. 10 ,000. Exactly. 10 ,000 candidates, which is extraordinary. I mean, they're currently doing MP selections, but I mean, they've got hundreds of councils to be chosen. Precisely. And I mean, if they do as well as they've done in 25 and 26, if there's a repeat of that, we could look at reform being the largest party in the country at a local level. I mean, that's ambitious for them, but they could do it.

18:12And by that point, you then look and you think, second in Wales in the New Senedd, second in Holyrood or equally with Labour, you know, biggest local government base, biggest party membership. Yeah. And then it's sort of this sort of asterisk and oblique style holdout in Westminster for the Conservatives, potentially. I think this feels like, and maybe I'm just being overly dramatic, it sort of feels like right this moment is the sort of, at least within this parliament, it's sort of the Tories' last chance. You know, there's a sort of push to go, no, Kemi's coming back, it's all going to be good.

18:42And we've had reform, you know, having a difficult time, let's just put it that way. But I think what's interesting about that is we still haven't seen, you know, you had Kemi with really good approval ratings, all that sort of stuff. But it hasn't really happened for them in the polls. You know, you still see reform at probably their weakest that they've been, at least this whole parliament, kind of still sometimes leading the polls, at least really being steady at around a sort of 24, 25 percent sort of area. And the Tories just not really breaking through. And I think if they if that doesn't happen within the next, you know, certainly by next spring, if we're still where we are, where the Tories are third, I don't think it really happens for them.

19:19And I think you get into a position where reform can start to squeeze that vote approaching a general election. And I think it all depends on when that general election is going to be, because I think a lot of people in the country want to see centre-right versus centre-left and are fairly agnostic about who that will be. Thank you very much, Nick. Thank you for listening to Coffeehouse Shots.

20:23We'll be right back. Click Grainger.com or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.