Inside Reform's by-election masterplan

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0:38Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's daily politics podcast. I'm Oscar Edmondson, I'm joined today by Tim Shipman and James Heal. Now, to bring listeners up to speed, if you've been under a rock, yesterday Farage called a by-election in Clacton as the funding rile started to take over. This is linked with convicted criminal posh George Cottrell and a£5 million undeclared gift from Christopher Harbourn. Both are being investigated by the Standards Commissioner. Tim, everybody seems to have called Nigel Farage's bluff, and nobody's standing in this by-election. Is it just going to end up being a Potemkin by-election?

1:09James Heale: Yes and no. Look, is this what reform wanted? No, I don't think it is. But they must have considered that it was a possibility, since when David Davis did exactly this in 2008, everybody else stood down and left his gesture looking a bit lame. But I think there's a bit more to it than just having a by-election, facing down the political establishment. Everyone assumes this is a sort of distraction exercise from the allegations which are building up against Farage in terms of his finances. I think what's happened, and I've got some indication of this from people inside, is that they'd be beginning to get a bit disgruntled.

1:44James Heale: Someone said to me yesterday after all this unfolded that since about February, they've been feeling like they're not really kind of in control of their own destiny anymore. Restore Britain have come through, which reformer Adamant is a Tory put-up job. And in the column I've written for the newspaper today, they have named Gavin Williamson, the former Tory chief whip, as the architect of that. I should say that Sir Gavin says this is not true. Didn't say much more than that, but that's what he said. So I think there's a general sense that the momentum had gone out of it, that all the defections that they had sort of all petered out.

2:23James Heale: that Restore are eating their lunch a bit, and they've just not really been on the front foot. They've tried doing some press conferences. It hasn't really cut through in the way that it did last summer. And there's a general sense of malaise set in. And I think there was a great desire to do something. And I think this is not just from Farage, but people around him, Chris Bunilo, the pollster has been muttering in private, I am told for a couple of months about what should we do, what should we do. And I'm told there was a meeting last week at which Reform essentially laid out its plans to put candidates into their 120 most winnable seats, put campaign managers on the ground so they have the best possible chance of winning those seats in the next general election whenever that is.

3:01James Heale: They want to be ready for one later this year or next spring. And as part of that meeting, there was a sort of what do we do kind of conversation. And Farage, I'm told, suggested that at some point, I'm not sure these are his exact words, but this is how it was characterised to me, that he said words to the effect of I might need to put my testicles on the block here. Wow, well he really has. And he has. And over the weekend, I think that's solidified the Sunday Times story, broadcasters going out doorstepping his daughter. That's put him in a state of total rage. And so he's had to go at this.

3:30James Heale: And frankly, we're all talking about it. It's reset the narrative quite successfully. And so I think he's doubling down. I think he's saying, right, I'm going back to what I'm good at. I'm an insurgent. I'm not a prime minister in waiting for now, at least for the next year and a half. Let's go and shore up the base. Let's wind them up. Let's say, look at this wicked establishment out to get me. and every mainstream media outlet that chases him around Clacton asking him to answer questions about his finances is going to get the bums rush from Farage. They'll be filming everything, putting it on their socials and saying, look at these people.

4:02James Heale: And if the sort of liberal kind of campaigning classes, the led by donkey's people, the 38 degrees, if they're stupid enough to get involved in this and try and get behind Count Bimface and say, unite to get rid of Farage, I think that will be play into his hands. Now, I should say my WhatsApp groups this morning, full of former, you know, number 10 special advisors, you know, there's Tories, Labour, Lib Dems in those groups, there is a bit of disagreement about whether I'm right about this. Some people think I'm completely wrong. But it seems to me that we may look back on this moment, and this may change six months out from a general election.

4:39James Heale: But to me, it feels like Farage saying, if the worst we do is win 200 seats and influence the outcome of the election, then that's a surprise worth having. and nearer the time, if he looks like he's in contention, he can get the recruits he's been talking about, those ex-generals, those NHS people to come in who might be cabinet ministers and he can look a bit more like a government in waiting then. But for now, I think he wants a fight and I think however daft he looks going up against a man dressed as a bin, his messaging will get through to the people who want it. I conclude my column by saying the establishment parties have not danced to his tune but his supporters will still hear it and I think that is what this was all about and I think even though it's not panned out as they hoped, I think that will still be the effect of it.

5:20James Heale: Here endeth the lesson.

5:23Tim Shipman: I think that Farage very much will feel comfortable today with the decision he's made. I think that those around him have felt for many months that what they were doing felt inauthentic. It wasn't them taking the Tories, playing kind of the establishments game rather than doing things by their own book. So I think they'll feel energised by that. Equally, I think the opposition parties were completely correct not to contest this. I think that, you know, as you say, he was scrapping up for a fight. And so what do you do? You sort of do the old rope-a-dope strategy. You sort of tire him out and actually take the wind out of the sails.

5:54Tim Shipman: I think that that's very much what's happening here. And then, of course, they can talk about a second by-election, you know, a second by-election potentially after the whole standards inquiry. And I think that that sort of takes away some of the initiative from Farage. For those in reform, they're saying look at the practicalities of the by-election. It means that the sort of slate will be white clean after the allegations about the 2024 campaign. It means they'll have a new mandate from that 2026 one. And it also means they'll go round. And if there is, say, for instance, a second by-election, they'll have collected a load of data from going around for the next two months, knowing where they're strongest after the pretty enthusiastic shambles of the 2024 Clacton race, where it's basically every man and his dog who liked Nigel Farage was just pitching in there.

6:32James Heale: Yeah, and they do have a lot of good data, as we know. I mean, this was the seat that Douglas Carswell stood down from as a Tory in 2014 and then ran for UKIP. and he basically, when he crossed over, he took all the canvassing information with him. So they have, in the sort of Farage party, under its three different identities, the best canvassing information that any party's got in that area and they have had for over a decade. The other interesting thing is, you know, this might have been predictable because the second Farage had finished his speech, he took a phone call from David Davis with whom he campaigned during the referendum campaign.

7:06James Heale: Don't forget, Davis, like Farage, was frozen out of vote leave and went off and they shared platforms together. Grassroots out with those fabulous green tyres. Yes, exactly. And Davis phones him up and says, copycat. And then claims that Farage is his mentor. But famously, that didn't really work for David Davis. No, it didn't. So that's the interesting thing. But I think DD, having had a brief conversation with him last night, is sort of of the view that this is a sensible thing for Farage to do. And, you know, there's still talk of the mainstream parties He's trying to maybe even stop the by-election and amend the vote and all that kind of thing.

7:42James Heale: I think, again, that I think would just play into his hands.

7:46Tim Shipman: I think we can expect to see in the coming days, we've talked before on this podcast about Boris Johnson 2023, but more talk potentially of what happened with the potential standards investigation into Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson, which was only two months ago. Of course, the Labour MPs were whipped not to vote in favour of that. Kenny Beidon, of course, proved he was trying to coach Labour MPs to vote in favour of that. So they'll say, hang on a sec, the whole system is inherently political. as we've discussed in this podcast, and actually saying that this isn't a kind of call to law. And I think taking it into the establishment, framing it as a people versus established fight, is what Farage wants.

8:15Tim Shipman: What Kemi Badenock and Andy Burnham very much want is to not let him have that. As an aside, it's quite interesting, the history repeating itself. She has an eight when David Davis resigns. Who's the Labour front venture called out to demand that Davis Davis stumped up the 80 grand himself? Andy Burnham. And so, of course, almost 20 years on, Andy Burnham is saying, oh, you couldn't possibly fund the cost of this to reform. So there's an element here of game playing.

8:37James Heale: This is the Andy Burnham who's just himself had an unnecessary by-election. For a£4 million cost, yeah. Yeah, and now we're about to have a by-election for the Manchester Meralty. The sum total cost is sort of£4 million to£5 million. So it's an interesting one. I just wanted to ask about this framing, this people versus the establishment framing. Do we think that people genuinely still see Nigel Farage as the anti-establishment candidate? Or has that mantle now been overtaken by Rupert Lowe?

9:05Tim Shipman: I think that the thing that Farage is always very good at is winding up his critics. And often his critics overstep. And I think that, for instance, take the debanking round in 2023. Clearly it was wrong of Coots to leak the information about his finances. Clearly it was wrong of him in the subject access request to overstep in the email. And I use that as an example. I think Farage tends to drive his critics slightly haywire. I think with the Sky News stuff, I'm broadly a supporter of journalistic doorstepping. But this clearly got into a row about he said, she said now, which is kind of rather much more comfortable on taking on the kind of mainstream media.

9:37Tim Shipman: There's echoes, Nixonian echoes here about guerriding against the kind of cultural elites, for instance, here. So I think that overall, that's the kind of things they do quite well in. The danger for Farage, as we'll be talking here, is that he doesn't get the fight he wants, if he doesn't pick the opponent he wants. And actually, there is echoes potentially here of another person who tried to break the two-body system, David Owen. David Owen's STP party in 1990 was wounding up after they finished behind at the Bootle by-election, the Monster Raving Loony party. Now, I don't think that's going to happen here.

10:03Tim Shipman: and it's also interesting, strikingly, that one of the other candidates, I think we've got three currently, we've got Nigel Farage, Count Binface, who's the comedy novelty candidate, and maybe Lawrence Fox, who's the comedy novelty candidate without the comedy. He, of course, was once in an alliance with the Reform Party when he led the Reclaim Party in 2021 and had the St. George's Day Pact. So all these different characters. The point is that can Nigel Farage bill this in the contest he wants, facing quite diminutive minnow opponents, joke candidates, rather than kind of the two main established parties, as he would like.

10:30James Heale: And the danger, of course, is that these other candidates do quite well. Now, the point that's been made to me this morning is this is not, there's a lot of elderly people who take voting quite seriously. It's not the kind of place where you're going to get a sort of, a kind of liberal wave uniting behind Count Binface to try and defeat Farage, I don't think. I think the sort of the good burgers of Clacton probably, you know, I'm sure Bim Face will do quite well. And his odds have come in. But, you know, what's quite well, 10, 15 percent in this kind of contest. It's not going to sort of dent things.

11:01James Heale: It will be embarrassing for Farage if he does much better than that. But I think that the object lesson here is look at what happened in the States. For a while, it looked like the sort of establishment in America had Donald Trump hogtied. They had four different criminal investigations going against him. He had one where he was found guilty. There were attempts at impeachment. There were attempts to sort of tie him up in red tape. And the sort of rules based order found it was unable to hogtie Donald Trump. And again, you know, I'm not remotely defending the way that Farage has handled this, because I think, you know, even quite a few people in reform think, A, he should have declared the five million and certainly should have had a straighter answer about what it was all about.

11:47James Heale: And he should have stuck to the same story at the very least. The handling's been pretty naff. But there is a slight element here of establishment parties. We're all about the rules and, you know, the declaration, you know, and it's not about the rules, politics. It's about appearances and argument and narrative. And if Farage did nothing else yesterday, he changed the narrative and he's got us all talking about it. We're literally going around and around in circles here. Every conversation I'm having with anybody in politics is going over this now. And yesterday we were thinking, what's Andy Burnham going to do as prime minister?

12:19James Heale: And, you know, is Nigel Farage in a spot to bother? And now we're discussing whether this was the right thing or not and how the next month is going to pan out. And it seems to me that that's a victory for Farage, however you paint it, really.

12:32Tim Shipman: I'd say talking to people in the reform world of course it's a very very tight circle around Najafraj there are those who think it very much is like the meme it's so over we're so back so some people in that kind of world think is this the end we've had a really bad run really they did win the locals but it didn't feel like it it's one of those sort of sports results it's a long old election cycle isn't it to keep up that level of momentum precisely and

12:53James Heale: they did better than the year before but the year before was utter euphoria wasn't it and this year it's just kind of okay well we banked that

13:00Tim Shipman: but expectation management is a key thing and they've always and i think that's a part hangover from being an insurgent and a scrappy party like ukip which is that you've got to constantly keep briefing yourself up and that can lead to problems long term but i think there are also those who say look you know this is him doing something he feels much more comfortable on its terrain he feels much better at and i think that he personally he likes short sharp campaigns and i think that's how we think about it after some of the i mean pretty odd i don't know what you've been hearing tim but you know people asking about his health etc and i do find it quite striking just how much he is seen as this one man in physical embodiment in a way in which burnham or or burt badenock isn't he is very much seen as the whole project and i'm fascinated that can be a strength i mean i spent

13:40James Heale: time with someone from reform yesterday who was saying oh they're putting around all this filth about his health again as people know there were rumors 18 months two years ago that he that he was unwell and that was flatly denied at the time it's being flatly denied now but the same person said oh well we're not a one-man band we're not a one-man band but then spent a lot of time convincing me that there's nothing wrong with Nigel Farage and, you know, it kind of inherently is the problem. It does matter to them whether Nigel Farage is fighting fit or not because he is, you know, what is he? I don't know what percentage of the party he would say was, but in terms of the public-facing part of the party, he's about 80 % of it, and if not more on some cases.

14:19Tim Shipman: And I think, you know, it's very difficult for people in reform. Everyone respects him. Everyone who's joined the party in reform by nature, self-selecting nature likes Nigel Farage, and they're very, very concerned about sort of speaking ill of him. But I think even those who are very close to him would probably concede he has made missteps and mishandlings along the way. And when he talked, for instance, about his justification for the$5 million gift he received, he initially talked about security. Thereafter, he told Harry Cole of the Sun that it was a reward for services done. My understanding was it was basically both those things.

14:49Tim Shipman: It was like, you've done this service in the past. This is to look after your safety in the future. But I think that that was a misspeaking moment there.

14:56James Heale: Well, he's also said he could buy a Ferrari with it if he wants to. Well, quite. Which is not, you know, it's not the most... It's not what the people are clapped and want to hear. No, if it's for your security, you know, say that and stick to it. But it sounds like George Cottrell's been funding his security. So the plot has thickened. And again, Cottrell's interesting. Lots of people, you know, looking in from outside say, what on earth is he still hanging out with this bloke? He's a convicted, you know, wire fraudster and he's just written a book about money laundering. What on earth are you doing?

15:22James Heale: Inside, they say George Cottrell's actually one of the sensible ones who calms things down. He's been one of Farage's sort of closest allies. He gives Farage unvarnished advice, which is good for Farage, rather than because he's got a secure in his position as one of Farage's sort of inner circle. He doesn't feel the need to manoeuvre position, which, let's be frank, a lot of people in that party are doing right now. It's all about, it's a court. It's all about proximity to Farage. So actually Farage probably gets better advice out of Cottrell than he gets out of some of the others. But at the same time, I hear Cottrell accompanies him to see foreign diplomats and blue chip company bosses.

15:58James Heale: Now, a lot of them are walking into the room and taking one look at George Cotter and thinking, why is this man hanging out with a fraudster? And it's not exactly helping reform sort of portray themselves as a serious party of government, which again goes back to where I started with all this, which is I think that they're doubling down on going back to being an insurgency. There was a book, you know, there were other books written about Brexit. One of them was called The Bad Boys of Brexit, and they loved that. It was all about Farage and Tice and Aaron Banks. That's the vibe that they like, and it feels to me like they're not ditching George Cottrell.

16:37James Heale: They're going back to screaming blue murder at the establishment. It feels to me like they're sort of embracing the same vibe they had during the referendum campaign.

16:44Tim Shipman: I quite like Millwall. No one likes us. We don't care. Exactly. Well, I, for one, am very much looking forward to James Heal's Nigel Farage book and the amendments that you've surely had to make in the last 24 hours. I'm quite haggard, dear listener, and I think that's a reflection of it. So I have a difficult conversation ahead with my publisher.

17:00James Heale: Well, you of all people know that I sympathise more than anyone, having had about nine of these moments as I was producing my books. And you've been particularly unlucky, because your Liz Choss book was about to come out when she decided to resign. You really know how to pick them, don't you? I really do. Are you the harbinger of doom for Nigel Farage? That is the question.

17:17Tim Shipman: I had a very good text from our former colleague, Megan McElroy, who said, can you write a book on my ex-boyfriend next? I think I have just breached the Ipso code by outing my sources. But yeah, section 14. But yes, who knows next? But yeah, let's finish this one first. Yeah, totally worth it. Thank you so much, James. Thank you, Tim. And thank you for listening.

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