Nigel Farage says Reform UK is no longer a ‘one-man band’ – so who is in his new top team?
Nigel Farage announced his party’s first frontbench appointments on Tuesday, as the Reform UK leader sought to dispel accusations that the party was a one-man band.
Claiming that Reform now “has its own brand, Reform has its own identity and Reform now has senior characters to lead its own departments”, Mr Farage has appointed four key spokesperson roles.
Two Tory defectors, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, were given posts; The former was made the party’s so-called shadow chancellor, while the latter was put in charge of education, skills and equalities.
Mr Farage’s deputy, Richard Tice, has been chosen as business, trade and energy spokesman, while Zia Youssef has been named home affairs spokesman on the promise of significantly reducing both legal and illegal immigration.
Robert Jenrick
The appointment of Robert Jenrick as Reform’s economic spokesman has been hotly contested, and both Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice are said to be in the running for the role. But Mr Farage is thought to have promised Mr Jenrick the role during negotiations over his joining Reform earlier this year.
At an event in London on Tuesday, he vowed to “oppose the wrecking ball that Rachel Reeves has created” and opposed Mr Jenrick’s “decades of mismanagement” of the economy despite holding ministerial posts in a number of different departments, including the Treasury, under the previous Conservative government.
In 2020, Mr Jenrick, then the Conservative Party’s housing minister, faced criticism after admitting he deliberately helped a Conservative donor avoid paying a new tax on housing development.
Mr Jenrick approved Richard Desmond’s luxury housing plan a day before the community infrastructure levy comes into force, potentially saving the billionaire media mogul £45 million in taxes.
Suella Braverman
Ms Braverman, who was forced to resign from her first job as the Conservatives’ home secretary and was sacked on her second attempt, became Reform’s education and equality spokesperson just weeks after joining the party.
Claiming that “diversity and equality policies are tearing Britain apart”, Ms Braverman has vowed to end her role as minister for women and equalities and also repeal the Equalities Act, a key piece of legislation preventing discrimination in Britain, if Reform wins the next election.
Reform’s equality chief also launched a direct attack on the rights of trans young people, saying “social transition and gender transition will be banned in all schools, no ifs and buts”. He promised to “end the trans chaos in schools”, claiming that children are being “educated about gender ideology rather than biological facts”.
His comments were heavily criticized by equality charities and lawyers, while Jo Maugham KC, chief executive of the Good Law Project, accused him of “appealing to the votes of misogynists, homophobes, racists and antisemites who are the only people who benefit from the removal of discrimination protections”.
He added: “Ms. Braverman’s thoughtless comments about ‘banning social transition’ in schools actually amount to policing children’s appearance – their haircuts, their voices, their clothes. This doesn’t work and has a very North Korean feel for schools and students.”
Meanwhile, the general director of the LGBT Foundation, Dr. Paul Martin OBE argued that the Equality Act “does not add to Britain’s difficulties, it is part of the solution”.
“Without it, people would have fewer protections against discrimination in daily life, from employment and healthcare to education and public services,” he warned.
A spokesperson for LGBT+ charity Stonewall said: “Anyone who chooses to work on equality issues or wants to take on the role of equality minister should only do so if they believe in the fundamental importance of equality and have a clear belief that marginalized groups deserve equal treatment and support.”
Ziya Yusuf
Mr Yusuf, who dramatically stepped down as party leader last year and returned to Reform just 48 hours later, was appointed home affairs spokesman.
Promising to dramatically cut both legal and illegal migration, he said he would withdraw any international treaty standing in the way of mass deportations.
Mr Yusuf has previously admitted that Reform UK would pay the Taliban to take back migrants who entered the UK illegally, and said he thought it was “quite reasonable” for the British government to give money to the regime to broker a repatriation deal.
He also faced criticism for his incendiary language, which compared illegal immigration to an invasion and claimed that “more people have entered Britain illegally in the last 8 years than the number of soldiers who stormed the beaches on D-Day”.
Richard Tice
Mr Tice, the deputy leader, was appointed spokesman for jobs, trade and energy and proposed a new “super department” aimed at boosting growth to 4 per cent of GDP.
Mr Tice has previously come under fire for his tax affairs after his partner, the writer and journalist Isabel Oakeshott, moved to Dubai to pay less tax. The Skegness MP splits his time between Westminster, his home constituency and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which he says he visits “every six to eight weeks” to spend time with his partner.
So it is perhaps appropriate that Mr Farage said on Tuesday that “we will see very little” of Mr Tice in his new role.
“He’ll be in Aberdeen, visiting what’s left of our refineries, what’s left of our manufacturing industry, so it’s absolutely vital work,” the party leader said, enlarging on his deputy’s new job brief.
Reform’s deputy leader has also previously stated that the UK could “aspire” to the kind of security seen in Dubai, claiming people could leave their belongings unattended and access them untouched when they return.
This comes despite Dubai facing widespread international criticism over human rights abuses, including restrictions on freedom of expression, discrimination and imprisonment of political prisoners.
