‘I used to be at Reform UK’s convention – these are the hazards behind the fireworks’

In a couple of months Birmingham NEC will host Charli XCX on her UK tour.

It’s probably fitting then that Parliament’s biggest showman would pick the venue to bask in his own Brat summer. Nigel Farage, thorn in the side of both Labour and the Tories, is on a high after finally becoming an MP – and he doesn’t mind saying so.

For the first time the Reform conference has five MPs lined up to speak, and the party’s spent big to bask in it. It flogged £50 tickets to around 4,000 party faithful and bought enough fireworks to give the boss the flashy entrance he feels he warrants. In order to cover the costs, there was an array of merch on sale outside the auditorium, including T-shirts brandishing the words ‘Let’s Save Britain’. Closer inspection reveals they were made in Bangladesh, but let’s not nitpick.

It was unlike any political conference I’d been to before – at times it felt like being in the audience for an episode of Gladiators. But that was the point, and the style over substance approach has long served Mr Farage well. But at least I had the opportunity to put the accusation that he’s treating being an MP as a “taxpayer-funded side hustle” to him – more on that later.

Mr Farage may be loathsome to many, but for believers he inspires a devotion like no other. Every mention of his name drew loud cheers as speaker after speaker talked up his chances of becoming PM. Many of them actually seemed to believe it, and certainly the crowd did.

He’s tapped into frustrations with British politics like no other, and made a career out of moaning about things without having to sort them out. After the Brexit vote he swanned off into the sunset, only to resurface in the following years to whine it was being done wrong.

But now he’s an MP, and he insists that Reform UK has come of age. And he’s probably right. New MP James McMurdock – by the leader’s admission a “paper candidate” who no one expected to win – talked up his boss’s chances of getting into No10. Former Strictly star Ann Widdecombe said Reform is the party of the future and claimed that in five years it would have 300 MPs.

TV hardman Ant Middleton, a recent convert to Reform, warned that civil unrest is “coming” and complained that the Navy isn’t able to protect our borders and our seas. It went unsaid, but presumably this is how he’d stop the boats. Reform will still give people a platform to make up policy on the hoof. The former SAS: Who Dares Wins host, no stranger to controversy, was billed as a “national security expert”.

All of Reform’s MPs had their 15 minutes to bask in Mr Farage’s reflected glory. Richard Tice used his slot to promise to get rid of Net Zero climate targets on “day one” if his party comes to power. Former Rishi Sunak ally Lee Anderson opted to tear up a TV licence reminder – as the audience chanted “rip it up”. He also branded controversial comic Jim Davidson – who was in the audience – “the greatest culural hero of our time”.

He also said his proudest moment was being named the worst person in Britain by the Mirror in 2022. There’s still time to bag the 2024 gong, Lee.

And millionaire former Southampton FC chairman Rupert Lowe, another of the 2024 intake, moaned that “emaciated” taxpayers were being stung by a “bloated” government. As you’d expect from all the speakers, immigration was the hot topic, with the odd passing reference to the NHS and education – but mostly in a “classrooms are too woke” kinda way.

Under the leadership of new chairman Zia Yusuf Reform is making moves. It says it wants to be more professional and rid itself of the lunatics and racists who keep on cropping up due to poor vetting.

After a typically theatrical entrance complete with Eminem’s Without You – “Guess who’s back? Shady’s back” seems a bold lyric to run with – Mr Farage bounded onstatge triumphantly.

“The party is an adult. And this weekend Reform UK comes of age,” he thundered, while also revealing he’s got no remorse for, well, pretty much anything he’s done. And that was that, the onstage fireworks delivering what the speech didn’t.

From there the reporters were whisked away for a brief question-and-answer session with the Reform leader. To his credit Mr Farage will take questions from media he isn’t aligned with, a lesson other parties could take on board.

Earlier I’d reported on analysis that showed the five Reform MPs have voted just 21 times from a possible 75 since the election. They also earned a massive £166,000 between them from second jobs – the majority of which went to Mr Farage. Is being an MP a side hustle I asked?

“Listen, I’ve got a company, I do a lot of things of a variety of things that company does,” came the prickly response. “I employ people in that company. And if you wanted to make them all unemployed, I could, we’ll see. As far as the voting is concerned, I voted more than the other party leaders.”

As it happened, this was incorrect. Mr Farage has cast three votes in the Commons, the same as Rishi Sunak. Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has done so six times, although Keir Starmer has voted just once.

The main lesson from the conference? Reform UK may be light on substance, but we need to take them seriously.