“I did Brexit – I was involved in the campaign,” said the Reform UK party official. “There was an energy then. But this? This feels bigger.”
“This” was the Nigel Farage-led Reform UK’s surge in the polls in advance of the July 4th election. The Reform official told party supporters queuing for a rally that it gained a new member “every 36 seconds – I see them coming in on the screens”.
We were at Staffordshire County Showgrounds in rolling West Midlands countryside halfway between Birmingham and Stoke. The rally wasn’t due to begin until 3pm, but supporters had lined up in the sunshine since just after lunch. Farage wasn’t due to appear, but this Hamlet-without-the-Prince effect didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of members. Reform supporters whoop their politicians when they speak and boo mentions of rivals – a political Punch and Judy show.
The rally’s star power came in its ebullient deputy leader Ben Habib, Tory defector Lee Anderson, who is defending his seat in Ashfield, and veteran former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe, now an enthusiastic Reform campaigner. They helped to entertain a noisy, adoring crowd for close to five hours. There was even a live singer.
About 600 people showed up, each paying £10 (€11.80) online in advance. They filled the large function room, where the bar was immediately swamped when the doors opened at 2.30pm. Business stayed brisk until the rally ended in the early evening.
It was an eclectic crowd. There was a roughly even split between men and women, but that’s where the symmetry ended. The biggest cohort was older but plenty were younger. Dotted between those who looked like traditional Tories was a noticeable contingent of long-haired biker-types, some covered in tattoos. Only a handful of attendees were not white.
Many arrived as ordinary-looking couples. A few had clearly dressed to be seen. One huge man wore a cowboy hat and leather waistcoat with nothing underneath it. Several were in turquoise – the Reform party’s official colour. There was also a handful of impeccably suited young men barely into their 20s, a more common sight at Farage’s events closer to London.
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Amid the party officials were some burlier men, including one wearing a light trench coat and a dark expression as he tried to corral people into seats.
“Take that,” said Reform’s candidate in Stoke North, Karl Beresford, as he slipped a poster into the hand of The Irish Times just inside the door. Then he winked. “Put it in on your front lawn. It will keep the cats off.”
I don’t want to keep eating into my savings. I feel betrayed. I fear for the future and I fear for my granddaughter
— Marie Thorpe, rally attendee
Reform placards were laid out on the chairs, although closer inspection revealed that they had been reprinted onto old Brexit Party corrugated boards – the old motifs were visible against the light. The room itself was dark, hot and stuffy. The only sunlight came from emergency exit doors that were flung open near the stage onto the showgrounds lawn, which doubled as the smoking zone and a kind of terrace for the noisy, bustling bar area.
Things heated up further when the first main speaker, Habib, was due onstage. The regional organiser who introduced him called his name but, for the next two minutes, there was no Habib. There was just the Eye of the Tiger pumping out of the speakers. The crowd clapped in sync. Then he strolled in from the back, flanked by the burly man in the trench coat.
He spoke for an hour, without notes, lambasting “globalists”, Tony Blair, Tories, Labour, civil servants, environmentalists, trans rights activists, migrants and, it seemed, just about everybody else apart from Reform supporters. More interesting than his speech were the reactions of the crowd.
The roof almost lifted when Habib criticised Covid lockdowns, and also when he condemned environmentalists. Applause was more muted when he spoke about cutting taxes, which he kept referencing, or when he criticised post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, which he decried as a “grappling hook tearing at the flesh of the United Kingdom”.
Almost every strident declaration Habib made was punctuated by one particular man who kept shouting “exactly!” Habib complained of media representations of Reform supporters as “far right swivel-eyed racist lunatics... and have we any far right swivel-eyed racist lunatics here?” Exactly Man himself stuck his hand up. Habib pointed him out, laughing. The room erupted.
“We are nationists. It’s the globalists versus the nationists. They can’t keep us down,” said Habib. The microphones wouldn’t work properly for his question-and-answer session. It ended to rapturous cheering anyway.
An older man stood up and shouted angrily that the people at the bar were too noisy and he wasn’t able to hear the speeches. Then the singer, local woman Samantha Goody, grabbed the mic and launched into an anthemic version of the ‘80s Labi Siffre hit (Something Inside) So Strong. It was turning into a party.
Marie Thorpe, a 66-year-old former NHS worker from the Staffordshire village of Little Hayworth, said she was a former Tory supporter. She believed “the Reform politicians lie less”. She had owned a care agency after working in the NHS, but had sold it and was now struggling to make ends meet, and had decided to return to work: “It’s the cost of things. I don’t want to keep eating into my savings. I feel betrayed. I fear for the future and I fear for my granddaughter.”
Rishi Sunak is almost too nice. At least Boris Johnson had charisma. I think we need more feisty politicians with conviction.
— Dawn Futcher, rally attendee
Beresford, a water services engineer, agreed to talk outside in the hallway so as not to add to the noise from the bar. He said he had previously been associated with both main parties and was a Labour candidate in the 2019 local elections. “I was pro-Brexit. I do not believe in a border down the Irish Sea. I actually care about this country.”
It was his wife’s birthday, he said, but he felt he had to be present for the rally.
Widdecombe received a hero’s welcome before her tub-thumping speech that hit many of the same touchstones as Habib, although with fewer personal attacks. She got the biggest cheer when she said the navy should “turn the boats around in the water” when migrants attempt to reach Britain.
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Brian Evans, a stonemason from Wales in a trilby hat and a turquoise tie, was enjoying the Guinness. He hadn’t voted for Brexit because he had been living in France at the time, he said. During lockdown he began watching videos of Farage on YouTube and eventually became a supporter of Reform: “I asked myself: who is it that keeps telling Britain what to do? Then I found out it was all coming from Davos. I also came to the conclusion I didn’t like the EU. They elect themselves.”
Dawn Futcher from Telford said she shared a birthday with Margaret Thatcher and had voted Tory since she was 18. “But Rishi Sunak is almost too nice. At least Boris Johnson had charisma. I think we need more feisty politicians with conviction.”
Anderson gave the final speech, which included a joke about Travellers doing tarmac on drives. Again, the crowd lapped it up. Goody ended the show with a song, a well-known Queen number, but with reworked lyrics: “We Want to Break Free.”
When it was all over the Reform supporters left the dark room and its bar behind. They departed blinking into the late evening sun, roused and entertained.
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