If Tolstoy had written about British politics, he might have noted: ‘Happy parties are all alike; every unhappy party is unhappy in its own way.’ Reform UK is beginning to resemble a laboratory test for the idea that every party run by Nigel Farage is unhappy in the same way. Just as in Ukip and the Brexit party, a highly dominant leader exists at the centre of a court, with extreme tensions between loyalist long marchers and arrivistes, between insurgency and respectability, between campaigning and preparing for government.
On Monday a new round of bloodletting erupted, when the founder of ConservativeHome, Tim Montgomerie, who defected to Reform two years ago, was suspended following his public criticism of Farage and the home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf. This decision came between the recording and broadcast of an interview Montgomerie gave to The Spectator expressing his concern about tone, tactical voting and party structures.
Montgomerie was stating what many say in private. But for those at the top of the party, the most significant thing to happen on Monday was not the Montgomerie affair. ‘For the first time since Easter, we held a press conference and no one asked about Nigel’s finances or the £5 million,’ says one Reform source, referring to the simmering row about Farage’s acceptance of a £5 million ‘gift’ from the crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne and donations from his close associate ‘Posh George’ Cottrell.
