Reform bombshell: Kemi 'asked Boris to stand against Farage'

0:06Welcome to day one of the Reform Party Conference. We've got a fabulous podcast ahead because we're going to be discussing donations with Nick Candy, including that five million. We're going to be asking Lee Anderson about his plan to bring back the death penalty. And we're going to be asking former Tory Danny Kruger whether reform can really run the country. I'll give you something for today which will, you know, I think will intrigue the people in the room and probably become a story here today. Who do you think Kimmy asked to run in the by-election against Nigel? Do tell. Boris Johnson. Really?

0:43Really. She asked Boris to run in the Clacton by-election against Nigel. That is what I'm told. I don't know it firsthand. Well, we're delighted to be joined as our first guest by Nick Candy. Hello. Who is the Treasurer of Reform and also its chief fundraiser. And in a sense, this special day of conference is aimed at people like yourself, Nick, because it's all about trying to attract business people to reassure them that reform can govern and to show them what their plans for the economy are. We should add that it's very expensive to attend today. It costs something like£500 plus VAT for a special business ticket, up to£3 ,000 if you're a VIP, and you can pay extra money to have dinner with the big wigs later on.

1:25Now, Nick is known as a high-end property investor and a venture capitalist. He has donated previously to the Conservative Party, but now defected to reform. So the first question I have for you, Nick, is how much money do you have? Enough to come to conference. You could afford the ticket. I could afford the ticket. And can you give us some sense of how much you've given to reform? Yeah, I've given over one million pounds. So I promised Nigel when I joined reform. And I remember I spent 14 years inside the Tory party. I ran Sean Bailey's campaign to be mayor of London. I was unsuccessful with that in terms of getting in the top post.

2:05And I have a lot of dear friends in the Tory party still, especially Boris, who I adore. I think he's a good man and he's got a good heart. But I spent 14 years there. And I was very disillusioned by the end of it. You see today as you're walking around, Kemi talking about giving 10 billion in donations to, well, not donations, 10 billion in defense spending. Well, we had 14 years of hollowing out our defense. I spend a lot of time with the special forces, the boys at the SAS, the SBS, X1s that are no longer with them. 20 years ago, they might have done something in Ireland. They're being prosecuted for now.

2:47and it breaks my heart to see what it's doing to their families you know they were instructed because of a prime minister and a defense secretary and those prime ministers and defense secretaries should be prosecuted not the guys that did the job although nigel farage has come out with a policy hasn't he yesterday to suggest that if you serve in the armed forces you can't face prosecution for anything that might happen on duty and critics have said well hang on a minute soldiers can't be above the law what if for instance they are responsible for carrying out a sexual assault on an army barracks of course yes and there's going to be anomalies and things on that of course but we if you're asked to do a job by the special forces but to go into a place that you and i can put our headers on the pillow at night you know because of that what they do and i spend a lot of time with them they cannot 20 years later be prosecuted if they have done something which is you and I would get prosecuted for if we go and sexually abuse someone or do something, then 100 % they should be prosecuted.

3:48Yes? We're talking about on the instructions of a Prime Minister of Defence Secretary going to do something. And I think that's 100 % right. You know, they do an incredible job for us. We don't know what they do half the time. We read about it later. We hear about it later. But how can we prosecute them when they've done something on the instructions of a co-brain meeting or you know prime minister it's just wrong it's morally wrong can I just get back to your wealth yes of course please um why only give one million and not say five or a hundred well is that on the cards I wouldn't say anything should be off the cards well are you willing to give more money and how much more money I promised Nigel two things I promised him I would be the first person to give a million pounds to reform and I also promised him to raise more money than any other political party has ever raised.

4:43I think we're well on the way to achieving that target. I think you're going to see for the first time the end of... We've had a century of a two-party politics. In that century, the liberals came up for a moment and then dropped away. You are going to see at the next election the end of two-party politics. Okay. Okay. And some of the established media, not saying you guys, But they don't want to see that. And so the attacks you're getting because of reform, on reform, is because of the establishment. Do you think... And we're not going to comment on it today because of legal things going on and stuff, but there's a lot of stuff happening which is completely untoward, is illegal, and happening to reform.

5:30Well, picking up on that, if one considers the Harbourn donation, which has got Nigel in so much trouble, it's why he had to run again in Clacton, he's still going to face an inquiry with Parliament. You're talking about two different things. Christopher's donated to the party. I think you're talking about the gift from Christopher. Oh, forgive me. Forgive me, but... Let's just break it down because you are the treasurer. And as Tim and I famously say, we're not very good at maths. How much has Harbourn given to the party in total? Well, the last gift you saw from the Electoral Commission was£9 million, which was the largest donation to a political party so far.

6:10I mean, I think Lord Sainsbury gave roughly the same to the Labour Party. Right. But what I want to ask is, will business people be reluctant to give if they think that their donations are going to cause them personal controversy? Is it harder for reform to attract money because of its reputation, rightly or wrongly, than it is for those established parties? Well, reform is already attracting more donations than almost both those parties, Tory and Labour put together. So that speaks for itself. The fact that we've already got more money being donated than the traditional two-party system. I think what you were trying to talk to me about earlier was the actual£5 million gift that Nigel received before he was going to come back into power or run to be an MP or whatever you want to call it.

7:04Yes. That, you know, he's had Casey's opinions on it. He's done nothing wrong. He's put himself at scrutiny. If they want him to have another by-election at Clacton, he'll keep having them. I mean, do you think that that's a good use of funds to have another by-election? Of course not. I think it's been done. But the establishment might not like that, so they'll just keep on running it. You know? I mean, on the establishment, Farage... I'll give you something for today which will, you know, I think will intrigue the people in the room and probably become a story here today. Who do you think Kimmy asked to run in the by-election against Nigel?

7:43Do tell. Boris Johnson. Really? Really? She asked Boris to run in the Clacton by-election against Nigel. That is what I'm told. I don't know firsthand. I actually haven't picked up the phone to Boris on it. Right. But Boris didn't do it. Because remember, Nigel gave those seats to Boris for Boris to win. Yes. So at least Boris has some decency. But what are we meant to extrapolate from that? The Tory leader is entitled to stand whatever candidate she likes there. Of course she is. And chose not to stand. And that was something when we went to see Nigel intact and we pointed out. Kemi wanted Boris to stand.

8:19Boris decided not to do it or chose not to do it. Have you ever had any conversations with Boris Johnson about bringing him across to reform? No. But I'd be happy to. But would the rest of reform? You would welcome Boris Johnson, even with the Boris way. No, no, no. I would not say I would welcome Boris into the party. I just said I'd be happy to speak to Boris. Right, OK. I love Boris, you know. Do you think Zia Yusuf would welcome Boris Johnson into the party? No, not at all. Tell us a little bit about the tensions there, because we've reported them. They're quite obvious on social media. It seems as if Yusuf might be suffering, and maybe lots of reformers are, even in the room, from a form of TDS.

8:56It's just not Trump derangement syndrome. It's Tory derangement syndrome, which is curious considering he used to be one. I don't know about derangement syndrome or whatever, but all I can tell you is Zia, his heart and his morals and his values are in the right place. Sometimes he goes too far, like we all do. We've all made mistakes in the past. I'm sure you two have made mistakes. I've definitely made mistakes, yes? So when he calls Ben Wallace a traitor, I don't agree with that, yes? Okay, but that's fine. You can have that tension in the party. It's not even tension. Yeah, I like Ben Wallace, but you know, we've hollowed out our defense under the Tories.

9:3214 years of Tories means we have a war today and Putin decides to bring a war to our shores. We are not ready. Yes. We couldn't even send a warship to Cyprus in the beginning of the Rammor. We had to rely on the French, which is good because Macron's here today. So Burnham can ask him for some more help. Indeed. And by the way, just on that Boris Johnson note, I'd be intrigued from the room. Who would be supportive of the notion of Nick Candy reaching out to Boris Johnson? I didn't say that, Camilla. Let's rephrase it. You said this would be a good story. We're running with it. No, I said to you, the story is that Kemi asked Boris to run for the Tories against Nigel in reform at a by-election.

10:19I did not say Boris should join reform. But you did say you had a conversation with him about it. No, I've spoken to him about me leaving, you know, because I went to Boris's wedding, I went to Boris's 60th. Sure. I love Boris and his wife. And I think, you know, I think the British media, the way they treated Kerry when she was in number 10 was wrong. All right. But let me put it this way. Who in the room would like Nick Candy to have a conversation with Boris Johnson about joining reform? I didn't say that, though, Camilla. No, but I'm just asking a hypothetical because it's an occupational hazard.

10:53What do delegates think of Boris? That's what we're asking. There's people shaking their heads. Does anyone? One man has put his hand out. Somebody's doing a throat-cutting gesture. Okay. Can I ask you a question? Yes. Who do you think out of the seven or eight prime ministers, I can't remember the number, we've had in the last decade, or let's say the last 20 years, which ones are global brands that are truly unbelievable brands. Not whether they did a good job. I would call Liz Truss unbelievable. Well, she's something. I don't know if she's a global brand. But we give Liz Truss a hard time.

11:28And again, the media likes to give Liz Truss a hard time. The borrowing costs today, a week into the honeymoon period of Burnham, are more expensive than they've been since 1998. So stop giving Liz Truss a hard time. Yes. And give Burnham a hard time. Yes. Our country is going down the pan. OK. Absolutely down the pan. You know, businesses will be leaving hand over. If reform do not form the next government, I will be leaving as well. Yeah. But Nick, we will talk about the Reform Party. But just as we're discussing your old one, I'm sensing from you that perhaps if Boris had remained leader, you might still be a Tory.

12:06Yes and no. I think. But listen, Boris. But reform wouldn't have happened. Come on, if he had stayed on as leader and been the leader in the 2024 election, this probably all wouldn't be happening. I mean, if he'd been better, basically. Yeah. Yeah, listen, he had some bad people around him as well. So one of the things, you know, for Nigel and Richard and the team and Robert and Zia and the team is to get incredible people around them. You know, incredible candors. Boris was stabbed from within his own team. Who are you referring to then? The actual people like Rishi Sunak or Dominic Cummings?

12:38I think more, you know, it's been played out a million times in the media, but, you know, Dominic, you know, people that want the top job. You've seen it just now with Labour. Yesterday, you've got Andy Burnham coming back after the summer or this week, the summer break. Guess what Keir Starmer does the first day? I'm going to resign. It's a guy who has an MP. So what do you think Keir Starmer's MPs inside the camp are going to do? Are they going to behave with Andy Burnham or are they going to be disillusioned and start to stab Andy Burnham in the back? They're going to stab him in the back. The problem, and we've got to stop this, yes, it doesn't matter whether you're Labour, Tory, reformer, any other party.

13:14We should have a law in this country that you can replace the Prime Minister once, okay, because of ill health or, you know, you want to push them out. Okay, once that's happened, back to the public and we'll have a general election. Yeah. Okay, and I think that should be a rule and it doesn't matter whether you sit here as a reform treasurer, a Labour treasurer, a Tory treasurer. it's not healthy for our country to change prime minister every two minutes. Would you like to stand in a general election? Absolutely not. Why not? I don't think it would play to my skill sets. Sure. I think you're doing very well.

13:47I was nervous about coming on. You shouldn't be. You're very welcome. Nigel has said that reform faces a complainant's society. He told the BBC that basically the reason why the establishment doesn't like reform is that they are, quote, the new kids on the block, and they're shaking things up. Now, you could point out that Nigel Farage has many things, but he's not a kid, he's not new, and he's been on the block quite a long time. I don't think it's about the individual. I think it's about, you know, we are a party, like, for the first time, you know, stop the two-party system. You know, I mean, that's what's happening.

14:24And that is frightening to the establishment. And you're seeing, I don't want to comment here today for legal reasons, but there's various organizations inside the establishment, government organizations, that have behaved illegally towards the party. We don't need a North Korea, a China, an Iran or Russia to get involved in our British politics, yes? We have our establishment doing it for us, okay? Which I never thought I'd sit on a stage and say that. I think like Nick Candy's barking and it's crazy to say that. I've seen it firsthand. You're sounding a little bit like Rupert Lowe or the Elon Musk.

15:00I took Nigel to meet Elon. And what happened? I organised that meeting. It was a brilliant meeting. And Elon's a good guy. He's one of the smartest guys of a generation, maybe for a century. But why is he backing restore and not reform? Because he has been fed wrong information by certain people about reform and restore. Who? Elon's just been... I don't want to say who, but he's been fed wrong information about the party. So Elon's big thing is the grooming gangs, the rape grooming gangs. So on the rape grooming gangs, one of the guys that did a good job was Tommy Robinson. Hats off to Tommy. He raised the profile of that.

15:42Can Tommy have any role inside reform? Absolutely not. Has Tommy been to prison for numerous different crimes? 100%. Fake passports, our own intelligence services picking up off planes when he comes back from certain countries. Tommy, but did Tommy do a good job on raising the profile of these young white girls? And I have two young girls. Yes, being raped by Pakistani men in different parts of our country. And various local councillors, leaders, even the police, deliberately hid the files, stopped happening. And we didn't want to say anything because it would have been reverse racism. Yes. Okay.

16:22It's a total disgrace, and it's unbelievable that's happened in our country. It's mind-blowing. So hats off to Tommy Robinson for saying and raising the profile on that. Did an incredible job. Is he the guy that can lead a country or whatever? Absolutely not. And I think Rupert, I know Rupert very well. I had dinner with him the night before he left Reform. And Rupert has invited Tommy into the party. You can't have that. You'll never be prime minister or be able to lead the country with Tommy Robinson's Obama. I don't think our intelligence services will die out. How worried is reform about restore?

17:00We're not. Shouldn't you be? I mean, they polled quite well in Greater Manchester, obviously in Great Yarmouth. I'm not worried about restore. There's going to be Nigel Farage and the reform MPs, in my opinion, will either win a majority outright or have the first chance to create a government. Okay? Okay, if it goes as well as I think it should go, I think, well, they will win outright. But we should never be complacent. Yes, there's a lot of work to do. The engagement with the business community is super important. You know, forget, I'm an old guy now, yes? The youngest talent in our country, the youngest, yes, with the brightest brains, okay, are leaving to go to other shores.

17:43Okay, whether that's the UAE or Asia or Milan or Lisbon or Monaco, wherever you choose to go, They're leaving. We have to stop them going. I believe still we have the greatest talent in this country. You're seeing the AIs doing things to the world we can't believe. Do you know one of the first companies that were sold here? DeepMinds. It was sold to Google. It was really the first AI company. The guy that was in charge of that was Lord Ken MacDonald. He was in charge from a legal perspective to make sure morally they treated it correctly and used it correctly. And Ken's a very dear friend. I mean, really close friend.

18:22I love Ken McDonald. Okay? And we've still got that talent here in terms of some of the greatest AI, biotech, tech. We've got incredible talent. You know what we're embarrassed about here? Making money from it. What a terrible sin if you had a great idea and you made money from it. That is not a terrible sin. Okay? We should be... The reason why the Americans do so well and we're sort of embarrassed of wealth, okay? You know, you're going to question me about lots of wealth things and I'm happy to answer it, but as much as I can. We shouldn't be embarrassed of generating wealth. It is a healthy thing to do.

18:59When you start a business and you go from A to Z, the idea is that it's successful. And one of those, like, barometers of success is making money. You know, do you know how many people in the cabinet, Keir Starmer's cabinet, had done work in private business life before. Very few. I think it might be zero, okay? They hadn't looked at a balance sheet. They hadn't looked at profit and loss. They couldn't understand the cash flow. It's mind-blowing. The only way we're going to get out of this mess is not taxing the smaller economic group, yes, even more. We have to deal with the welfare state. If we don't deal with the welfare state, we can all pack up and leave and let just this be a country where the state pays for everything.

19:44Yes. Okay. And we are heading that way. We probably have, of the 9 million people on welfare today, we probably have 3 million people that are defrauding the system. And guess what Keir Starmer did with his huge majority? Yes. He couldn't get anything through on the welfare bill. He couldn't get it through. So Burnham's not going to be able to get it through because he's going to have those Keir Starmer guys that don't like what Burnham's done, okay, fighting against him. So So Burnham will not be able to get anything through on the welfare state. So the only thing he's going to be able to do is tax people more.

20:21Okay? And there's only three ways a country can, you know, raise money effectively. One is tax, various taxes. We have a code of, I think, 22 ,000 pages of taxes. Do you know what Singapore has? One page? A few hundred pages. It's ridiculous. No one in this room could understand the code. The best tax professors, the best tax experts can't understand the code. We made it too cumbersome, too, like, it's just too long. It's ridiculous. It needs to be similar. So we ought to tax people more, whether it's corporation, income, national insurance, VAT, whatever tax you want to take, yes, we can do that.

20:58We can raise more money on the balance sheet of UK PLC. Well, if we continue to do that, we've got the highest borrowing costs in the Western world. We've got the highest energy cost in the Western world, and we've got the highest borrowing cost. We will go bankrupt. Or we can take direct foreign investment from foreign countries to invest into the UK to help us with our energy problems, with our infrastructure problems, all sorts of different things. And that would be a smart way to do it. At the same time, trying to reduce the welfare bill. Because if we don't reduce the welfare bill, we are going to go bust.

21:31Yeah. Of course, reform's plan for business involves a great number of tax cuts, which I'm sure they will welcome, but they could add to that fiscal pressure. But one thing that you do want to raise taxes on is the hiring of foreign workers. Is that something you think the business community will welcome? So listen, I'm not a policy guy, okay? So I can't sit here and tell you specifics about policy because I'm not a policy person. I'm not creating the policy. I think, yes, you know, there's some places where we need foreign workers. For example, the hospitality business. You know, we know the Italians are the most incredible people, you know, in service and hospitality.

22:09So why don't we give hospitality visas? Where you have a skill set, a proper skill set, which distinguishes you from other people in your community or globally, yes, we should allow the best in class to come and have special visas. Where you are taking from our society and you don't add any value, we should kick you out. But forgive me, that is not reform policy. I said you're not a policy guy. No, I know, I know, I know. So I want to put reforms policy to its chief fundraiser, which is to raise the employer national insurance rate to 20 % on foreign staff with exemptions not for hospitality but for health care and small businesses with under five staff.

22:50So what do you make of your party's policy then? Listen, as I said to you, I'm not the policy guy. In terms of health care, I think it's super important because when you go to a hospital or whatever, obviously there's a lot of foreign people there and that they save our lives and they look after us and our loved ones when you get there. So super important. Small business, there'll be some exemptions to this. There always is. And things need to get refined and changed. It happens. It's normal. And as long as you're listening and you're willing to change, then you should. Just because that's what you say today doesn't mean...

23:22Politicians are scared of saying sorry. It's the most ridiculous thing. We are vulnerable. We make mistakes. It's okay to say sorry. On that note, Danny Kruger's waiting to come onto the panel because he's got a hard out, I think, near the end of the hour. Very busy man. Nick Candy, thank you so much for your candor. The Boris Johnson revelation, Tim. Yeah, that was big. We are going to send it to the live blog immediately. Yeah, we've got something big out of this. Somebody call Kemi. Find out if this is true, ladies and gentlemen. You know what? Boris would not have done it because Nigel behaved correctly with Boris, and Boris just behaved correctly with Nigel.

23:58On that bombshell, we'll let you go. but thank you very much indeed for joining us. A round of applause for Nick Candy, everyone. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Lovely to speak to you, Nick. One in, one out, ladies and gentlemen. Let's welcome Danny Kruger to the stage. Hello, Nick. Lovely to see you. So Nick Candy was swerving a few questions there, saying, I'm not dealing with policy, I'm not dealing with policy. You, however, are. So let's start with the two certain... You're literally doing the policy. You're literally... I found your biographical notes. You're literally in charge of policy.

24:30No, I'm not. But anyway, never mind. Oh, you're headed preparing for government and policy strategy. Right. Very quickly, I'm leading our preparation for government. So it's really downstream of policy. So this is about making government work so that when we win, we go in with a plan. And crucially, that the system that receives us is ready to do what we need it to do. Because every government that's come in in recent years arrives with a very thin manifesto. And then they expect the civil servants to translate it into action. and then they find it doesn't. And that's because partly the civil service itself is politically biased, but even Keir Starmer, who was one of them, the civil service loved Keir Starmer, they still resisted because the system is broken.

25:12So what we're going to do, and my responsibility is to ensure that we have plans for civil service reform, for putting ministers back in charge of the government, for ensuring that the courts don't stop us, that the House of Lords doesn't stop us, that the manifesto that we hope the public will support can actually get delivered. So it's downstream of policy. What we hope we're going to do is fix the British state so that any government with any agenda will actually be able to deliver on behalf of the manifesto.

25:52Is the British state broken beyond all repair? and I ask that because on the Daily Tea we discuss a lot state failure and also I think sometimes we attribute blame to this thing called the blob without actually pointing out that some of the reasons the state fails is because the individuals running these organisations are simply not fit for purpose themselves. Yes I completely agree just in defence of civil servants for one moment they legitimately blame the politicians they say the reason that the blob has to step in the reason why the civil service has become so powerful is because politicians haven't done their job, which I think is kind of fair because politicians come and go.

26:33They're often appointed without any actual experience of the department that they're supposed to be running. They are responsive to the political turmoil of their parties. And into this vacuum step these civil servants. And then you're right because those civil servants themselves are often not up to the role, up to the responsibility that they have. So we need to do two things. We need to have politicians who genuinely have expertise in the area that they are responsible for. They need a clear mandate and a plan and the authority from the centre to do the job they're going to do, and they need to do it for long enough.

27:04They need to be in post long enough to actually deliver and take responsibility for what they're going to do. And secondly, we need a class of officials, of permanent civil servants, who also have genuine expertise, skills and ability, and who are incentivised for success. Because quickly, the big problem we have with the civil service is if you want a nice job that's reasonably well paid but if you hang on for 30 years you'll get a really good pension and you want to do as little as possible to cause any trouble in that 30 years and basically not screw up and move around to get promoted from time to time but basically never take responsibility and never deliver anything the civil service is the place for you that's how we incentivize that's what we that's what we what we select and recruit and and incentivize in the system so we need a different model of paying people for results and getting good people in from the private sector to come and serve in government for a few years, bringing their expertise.

27:54So we need to get a better class of politicians, which is what reform is very busy recruiting for now with our candidate selection. And we need a better class of civil servants too, which is my job, reforming the way that Whitehall works. Did you read Alastair Heath's column this morning? I'm so sorry to report. I did. I did have coffee with Alastair Heath this morning. So maybe I know what he thinks. I'm sure he'll have told you what was in it. I'm not going to test you on it, don't worry, what was paragraph six. But he makes the point that whoever gets elected, they're just going to have to cut.

28:25That we face such an appalling fiscal cliff edge, because people are losing confidence, the people who lend us money are losing confidence in us, the cost of borrowing is going up, and Burnham's going to have to face this eventually. Does this mean that whichever party gets in, politics now, in the future, is really going to be about trying to persuade people that they can cut? They know the right things to cut, They can get cuts done. It's not about doing anything creative with the state anymore. It's just about shrinking it before we drown. So cuts are essential, imperative. They're the first thing we've got to say we're going to do.

28:59We are saying that. We've already committed£50 billion worth of cuts from the welfare budget, an unprecedented sum. We also need to reform the system. And that means ensuring that the system doesn't just act as such a drain on public finance for the rest of time. But the first thing is absolutely we need to make that commitment because, as I'm sure Alistair was referring to, the bond markets are now really sucking their teeth when they look at Britain. They look at this country and they think this is a country way overextended, enormous rates of borrowing and an unsustainable spending trajectory largely driven by welfare.

29:38and what they're also seeing I'm afraid to say is a political class and a government now with a big majority united behind a prime minister who clearly does not have a plan for fiscal retrenchment you know I challenged him yesterday in prime minister's questions on this I said you know I'm all for like supporting young people I think it's great to have a focus on communities that's a big part of my political philosophy but unless you're prepared to say we are going to cut welfare and by the way cut taxes on business so that we have jobs that young people can get into. If unless you're prepared to say those two things, then nothing else matters.

30:15And him talking about funding more mental health support for young people in order to cut the welfare bill, that just isn't going to do it. So the bond markets see Burnham for what he is, which is a plausible, nice guy with no real plan and no courage to make the changes that are necessary. He's sitting on top of a political party which wouldn't let him, even if he wanted to, as we saw with poor old Starmer's pathetic attempt to cut two billion quid out of welfare. They wouldn't even let him do that. So yes, we need to go into government with a very, very robust and clear plan and a mandate from the public to deliver these cuts.

30:49And it is going to be painful. It is going to be difficult. But that's what Rob Jenrick has set out, 50 billion pounds worth of cuts, replacing PIP with a new benefit that combines UC Health and the disability benefit. You have to have a proper assessment and you'll only get it if you are clearly physically unable to work. By the way, those people really need our support and help. That's exactly who the welfare state should be for. They shouldn't have to jump through literally hoops of assessment and reassessment. If you can't work, we'll look after you. But there are millions of people who should be working, who can work, who are literally written off by the system, getting thousands of pounds a month to stay at home and do nothing.

31:31That won't happen in the future, and that will save us tens of billions of pounds. On the savings, Robert Jenrick, as you say, has said that you want to cut£50 billion from the welfare bill, which you've just discussed, and then a further£50 billion, which would mean a reduction in state spending of£100 billion in the first 100 days. Now, first of all, people will be asking themselves, Is that really credible and deliverable? And second of all, isn't this a bit of a dilemma for somebody like Nigel Farage, who is the MP of a constituency, Clacton, where a great many people are on benefits? So it is credible.

32:05And you will hear from Rob the details of our commitments this week and in the future. So we very much recognise, you know, those of you who are supporters of reform will understand our challenge. We are the insurgent party. We are the radicals. We are the ones who are genuinely committed to delivering the serious change that this country needs and that it can't wait for and that the mainstream parties aren't going to deliver. We are the radical insurgent populist party and we're absolutely proud of that. But we also need to be the party of delivery. We need to be competent, capable and we need to show our workings.

32:36We need to convince the public, yes, we have the right diagnosis, the right headlines, the right plans and promises. But have we actually got the real detail to deliver it? And that is our absolute commitment to the public that we are going to present that. This is not going to be a little thin manifesto with some aspirations. It's going to be a properly worked out plan. And you'll be hearing more detail on that this week. And then in terms of, you know, how to do it, well, wait and see. I mean, I think the challenge for us on the economy is to get growth back. And that is only going to come by supporting those entrepreneurs and business people who create jobs.

33:09This is the sort of thing I might have heard from the Conservative Party 16 years ago. in fact from someone like you when you were a Conservative MP some time ago. To what extent is reform distinct then from the Conservative Party when it comes to populism? You describe them as populism but it sounds to me like we're back to big society, welfare cuts, shrink the state. What is the pitch here that makes you different from the Tories? Well Tim, thank you very much. We have inherited the true mantle of conservatism. That is what we are, we are what the Tory Party always should have been. And that, by the way, is a national party that appeals to voters across the spectrum.

33:47And reform now stands for people across the United Kingdom in every corner of it, from every kind of background. And the Tory party no longer does. So if you're asking for the differences, where is our support? Our support is national. And if you're referring back to those years, I mean, I've only been an MP since 2019. But I did work for David Cameron back in the day in opposition when he was talking about the big society. And I always thought that was the best thing he did, except for the Brexit referendum, which was the other great thing he did. But the big society was, I think, a great principle.

34:18Badly executed, hamstrung by Whitehall. George Osborne didn't believe in it. But the idea was a good one, which is that we should be trusting each other. We should be looking after our families and our communities. We should be putting ourselves into that place where we say they should do something about that. No, that's us should do something about that. I think that's what the British people believe in and want to do. And yes, it means welfare reform. Yes, it means dismantling the great bureaucracies of the centralised welfare state, empowering local communities and trusting the kind of charities that I've been involved with and run for many years.

34:52We should be putting support behind actual real human beings who are responsible, have a hard head and a soft heart, who understand that, yes, there are a lot of people who need support, but let's not be taken for a ride. You can't do that from Whitehall. DWP can't distinguish between a deserving and undeserving benefit claimant, but a human being on the ground in the community can. So, you know, if this reminds you of, you know, 2008, I'm proud of that, Tim. Danny Kruger, thank you very much for joining us. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Let's have a round of applause, please, for the Reform MP for East Wiltshire.

35:26Thank you, Danny. Thank you. And again, why is Boris always a subject of conversation? We start on Boris, we end on Boris. To me, the interesting question is, is reform a populist party, something novel on the British scene, or is an attempt to do the Conservatives properly? Well, why don't we ask the former Labourite, former Conservative, and now Reform MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, to join us on the stage, and hopefully he can answer that question. Round of applause for Lee.

36:01Welcome, Lee. Nice to see you. Hello, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining us. Well, that's a good place to start. Tim? Lee, is reform something new and distinct, populist, or is it an attempt to do the Conservative Party properly? That's a very good question, and I'm trying to think how to answer that. I think reform's been around for years, just in a different name. It is probably the best way to describe reform is disillusioned people, voters around the country, whether you've been to the left of politics or to the right of politics, have all come together for one common cause, and that's to save our country.

36:39It's as simple as that. And people often say that you're divisive. Nigel's divisive. Lee Anderson's divisive. The party is divisive. We are not divisive. We've proved that in the local elections this year and last year. We can go to areas in places like the Midlands and the North, in solid, red-wall Labour areas and wind councils, absolutely hammer the Labour Party. And then we're going to the south of the country, which places like Essex, Tory, heartlands, and absolutely destroy the Tory party in areas like that. So we're bringing voters from both sides of politics, from the left and the right, together, and they're voting for reform in huge numbers.

37:17And we've got over 5 ,000 members coming to this conference over the next few days. And I bet if you did a poll of them, over 75 % of them have never been in a political party before, ever, in their lives. They're just people who's fed up to the back teeth, of politicians promising them something every five years and then totally going back on the word. And they do that time and time again. But now there, as Layla says, there's a new sheriff in town. We're doing things differently. We're actually listening to people and talking to people. We've proved with our councils already that we are actually doing things under very difficult circumstances.

37:53It's not been easy for some of the councils. We've got officers of a certain political persuasion pushing back all the time, but we're getting there. we're fixing our potholes, we're fixing our roads we're sorting our SEND as well we're doing all this great stuff and it will be a battle when we get into government as well with the civil service, we expect a similar sort of battle, but we've got one chance to save our country and Reform UK with new members of parliament hopefully like the great Marco Longhi here if he gets selected and gets elected in a few years time we can save our country because we still live in a wonderful, beautiful country I still think this is the best country the greatest country in the world, but we've been giving it all away, systematically giving it away, our culture, our history, our way of life, our laws, and it's time.

38:39It's got to stop. We've got to stop it. And Reform UK, led by Prime Minister Nigel Farage, is, I think, the only party that can save our great country. On that, Lee, please do give that round of applause. Pause for applause. We'll edit that out later on. on that Lee no one can deny how well reform did at the local elections no one can deny some of the projections particularly for areas like Essex and no one probably has a greater understanding of how to win back the red wall than you do in your seat however the national polling seems to be either going backwards or at least stalling your former party the conservatives this week celebrating a more in common poll that put the Tories ahead of reform for the first time in months.

39:29Now, we all know in this room that in order to enact the change that you want, you need a stonking majority. That means your poll number needs to start with a three, not a two. Why is it currently at a two, and how do you get it to a three? How many people in this room are going to vote reform at the next election? Well, we are at a reform conference. About 80%. It might be a loaded audience. Yeah, seriously, Camilla. One poll in about 400 over the past 12 to 15 months has put the Tories slightly ahead. And I believe they have changed the way they do the polling. And there is a margin of error, about three points.

40:07So I think it's a bit rich when people... I've seen them on social media sharing these polls. Look at the Tories. They're now ahead. You know what? Come poll Ashfield. I'm polling over 50%. Nigel's the same. Richard's the same. I think the Tories have given up on the red wall. They had a chance in 2019, the Tories. I stood on a Boris, Brexit, an anti-Jeremy Corbyn ticket in 2019. It was nothing to do with me, why I won that seat, or Marco, why he won in Dudley. It was Brexit, it was Boris, it was Corbyn. And people like my parents went to the ballot box with their hands shaking. My mum and dad have voted Labour for over 50 years, and they voted for me as a Conservative candidate for the very first time.

40:45A thousand, nearly 20 ,000 voted for me at that last election. They will never, them Red Wall voters that voted Tory for the first time, they will never vote Conservative again. They won't vote Labour again either, because we'll see our bad Burnham is in the coming months, guys. They will vote for Reform UK. Now, we've got to work hard to keep those seats in the Red Wall and the North and the Midlands. We don't want to take anything for granted. And the polling we talk about is a national average, remember. You know, in areas like mine, 50-odd percent. In other areas, in the South and the Lib Dem areas, Is it maybe 12%, 14%, 15 %?

41:21I don't know. But we have to win a majority. We work on a parliamentary system. We have to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. If we can get up to 30%, 29%, 30%, 31%, we've got a majority. It's as simple as that. And this Burnham bounce, the media will talk about, is not a Burnham bounce. I've said it many, many times. It's a we've just got rid of Keir Starmer's sigh of relief. It's as simple as that. once people find out what Burnham's really like in PMQs and some of the policies he comes out. And, you know, let's not forget, he's still got the 400 same-backed ventures sat behind him who's ready to stick that knife in the back at any time.

42:01It's the unions, it's the left of the party, what policies he decides to come up with. And I think, you know, I think he'll be worse than Starmer. I really do. He's further to the left. I don't take him seriously. I mean, 400-odd MPs, and they've had to fix a by-election to make him the Prime Minister of this country. That's absolutely disgraceful. Bear in mind, you know, they were whinging at Nigel when he called the by-election, when he stepped down, about the cost of a by-election. Nobody was whinging about the cost of the by-election up in Makerfield, or the subsequent cost of having a Merrill by-election, which cost£4 million to£5 million.

42:36And now I see Storm has gone. Another 200-odd grand to run that by-election. So I'm not fit at the Labour Party. The only reason they won the last election is because the Tories were so bad. It's as simple as that. Mark, I'll tell you. You have said, Lee, that you will run in the next election. Yeah. That'll be your last one. Now that's highly unusual. Most politicians have to be removed from the Commons with a crowbar. Why are you setting that limit on yourself? because at the end, when I stood for Parliament the first time in 2019, I always said I would do two terms.

43:15And I now feel like I'm actually part of something, part of a movement that's going to save our country. And it wouldn't be fair if I ran away at the next election. I've got to stand at the next election because I think we can change course, change the direction of our country. And to do that, I need to stand at the next election. If the election's in 2029 and I do another five years, I'll be 67 years old. I want to do something else. I'd like to go back to being a local councillor again, I'm a local councillor, and do some good local stuff. And away from that madhouse where we work. It is a madhouse.

43:50It's a lunatic asylum where we work at the moment. And the people that work in there, the MPs, have got nothing in common with you lot in this place. They wag their finger at you every single day. They tell you what you need to think and what you need to do, and it shouldn't be like that, because politics, guys, is very, very simple for me. You go home on a Thursday, you listen to your family, your friends, your constituents, you do your surgery, listen to normal people, and then you go back to Parliament the following week and have the same questions they've asked you. It's pretty simple stuff, really, isn't it?

44:20It's pretty simple, but we're not doing that. What did you make of Samantha Niblett's summer of sex? Oh, dear. I don't know. So I've got to be very careful what I say with that. Well, there was a hosepipe ban in mine. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what she's playing at, to be honest. But again, she's one of these Labour MPs that's a one-termer. Right. You know, we had a lot of one-term Tories at the last Parliament. These are one-term Labour MPs. She'll be gone. She knows she's gone. She's making a bit of a name for herself, a bit of a silly name, if you ask me. But it just shows how serious some of these Labour MPs are.

44:55I bet their constituents are not talking about a summer of sex. They're talking about something like housing or jobs or poverty or the NHS or illegal migration, which fills my inbox every single day. They're not talking about silly things like that. I mean, she's a very silly lady, I think. OK. Well, are people talking about bringing back the death penalty? No. Because you are, Lee. No. And I'm just going to ask you this. When it comes to stretching that vote up to 30-something percent, you're going to have to try and achieve the impossible that Boris Johnson managed in 2019 by uniting sort of Waitrose women and Mondeo men.

45:34And it's quite a difficult caucus to unite, isn't it? There'll be people who shop at Waitrose that won't want to bring back the death penalty, but there'll be people in the red wall that really like that kind of rhetoric, not least because the country feels increasingly lawless. just drill into that a bit more because the sort of bring back the death penalty debate in what form? Hanging? Lethal injection? Electric chair? For whom? For honours? All I've done over the years is express my opinion. I believe in the death penalty. It's as simple as that. And we hear lots of arguments for and against.

46:09And the biggest argument against is that you might not get the right person. And I understand, completely understand that. But you know what? when those killers murdered Lee Rigby outside the army barracks, they were the right people. They did it. They was filmed doing it. They was caught doing it. They had blood on their hands. They admitted to doing it. And I think in situations like that, there should be the death penalty. I don't want these creatures in my country. A round of applause for that. But Lucy Letby, for instance, was found guilty of killing many, many children. She would be a prime candidate for getting a death sentence.

46:48No, she wouldn't. And now there are serious doubts that many people have, I'm sure, including reform supporters, that she is even guilty. That's the kind of person, hard case, Like I said on my previous answer, the killers of Lee Rigby were caught in the act. It was filmed. There's no doubt they admitted to it. So in my eyes, in my world, they should have been sentenced to death. Simplest. But that would create two different categories of crime, wouldn't it? Well, there is. You'd have a guilty verdict where we definitely think they did it versus a guilty verdict where, well, we can't be 100 % certain, so we won't declare the death penalty today.

47:23But you're relying on a jury to make that decision. And like I said, the murderers of Lee Rigby, they were caught doing it. There's no doubt whatsoever, no doubt at all. They should have been gone. Whereas if there is doubt or if it's a decision by jury, in the case of Lucy Letby, then I think life imprisonment is fine. Thank you very much to the audience. Let's give ourselves a round of applause and say that we will be back for day two at the Reform Conference a little later than 5pm. Thank you. Thank you, Leigh. The Telegraph approached the Conservative Party for a response to Nick Candy's claims to which a party spokesman said it's incorrect.

48:17you