Nigel Farage has always sold himself as the antidote to the political establishment. He’s the bloke who’d burn the Westminster furniture rather than rearrange the cushions. But Reform UK is starting to look less like a revolution and more like a Conservative recycling centre, with more than 20 former Tory politicians having defected since the last election.
Let me be clear: Jonathan Gullis, the former Tory deputy chairman, is a mate of mine. I like him. He’s got the kind of robust opinions and Red Wall energy that suits Reform. If you’re building a party that thrives on bluntness and populist edge, Gullis fits the brief. But he’s the exception, not the rule. The rest of this Tory convoy are the same people who spent 14 years driving the country into potholes and budget black holes.
These are not fresh voices or political insurgents. They are the architects of the chaos we’re currently in the midst of. Which is why Labour must be laughing their heads off. Keir Starmer doesn’t even need to write a clever attack line because Reform has gift-wrapped it. “Why vote Reform if you’re just getting Conservatives?”
It’s devastatingly simple, perfectly accurate, and politically lethal. Reform are meant to be the disruptors, the outsiders, the insurgency. Instead, they’re becoming the care home for disgruntled ex-Tories who couldn’t keep their seats or their reputations.
Farage, a man who relishes attacking the Conservative record, now finds himself leading a party brimming with the very people he wants to blame. How do you slam 14 years of incompetence when half your front bench helped deliver it? How do you rage against the elite when you’ve recruited them wholesale? It’s ideological hypocrisy with a pint in its hand.
Party sources may have suggested former Tories are ‘unlikely to be selected as candidates because of their track record in Government’. But it’s not enough.
If Farage wants Reform to retain credibility, he needs to walk out onto a stage, look down the camera lens, and say the words that could save him: “The doors are closed to Tories.”
Shut it. Bolt it. Cement it shut. Because if he doesn’t, Reform will be remembered not as Britain’s great political alternative, but as the second chance waiting room for Conservatives who ran out of road. Reform said it was going to change politics, but it’s looking like a lighter shade of Tory blue.
