LONDON — You know you’re on the way up when the lobbyists come knocking.
Nigel Farage’s burgeoning Reform UK is spooking Britain’s Labour government — and now a triumphant showing at regional elections in England has Westminster’s influence-peddlers racing to catch up.
After Reform UK piled up votes, council seats and mayoralties, Farage’s right-wing outfit is seeing a big uptick in interest from SW1 lobbyists wanting a piece of the action.
“We are certainly of interest to lobbyists and public affairs agencies,” one Reform staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal matters, said days after the party’s elections victory. “They’re keen to get to know us and sound us out on what our positions are on various subjects.”
Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice said he saw the increase in lobbying activity as a “sign of success.” “Fundamentally we know what we want to achieve, we know what needs to be done,” he told POLITICO.
Cashing in
While Westminster is awash with former Labour and Conservative staffers looking for post-politics employment, Reform UK’s newcomer status means it short on alumni.
Farage’s former communications chief Gawain Towler, who recently set up public affairs outfit Oak Insight with Tory ex-minister Chris Heaton-Harris, said he is reaping the benefits of his long association with the Reform UK leader.
“Somebody phones you up and says: ‘Gawain, I’d like to bring you in for dinner with some of our clients because they are starting to ask about Reform. How does this sound? We’ll take you to [swanky restaurant] Rules. We’ll give you a nice three-course meal, get you properly watered with decent wine, and you talk about politics for 20 minutes, and we’ll pay you a grand.’”
“I can do that,” Towler deadpanned.
Reform UK doesn’t have “a bunch of superannuated old farts sitting in the House of Lords looking for an expensive lunch,” Towler said — leaving the field clear for the likes of him.
Treating with respect
But lobbyists with connections are at risk of overstating their importance, Liam Deacon, a former head of press for Farage’s previous political outfit the Brexit Party, and now a senior consultant at Pagefield, said.
“Any campaigner or lobbyist who’s good at their job, and understands the way that politics works, can be effective if they engage with those parties with respect,” he said.
Deacon has long been engaged with Reform, and said he had been “trying to show companies that you don’t need to be populist, or aggressive” when dealing with the party.
There’s plenty of intel to gather without the need for a swanky consultancy, too.
Tice urged lobbyists hoping to understand Farage’s outfit to simply look at what’s already out there.
“Read our Contract [with voters] from last year, then they will probably understand where we are coming from,” Tice suggested. “Look at our energy policy announcement earlier this year. Look at Nigel’s speech at the launch of our local election campaign setting out some of our key national priorities. It’s all out there and it hasn’t actually changed.”
Labour language
Understanding Reform is not just about directly influencing the Farage outfit, lobbyists say.
The electoral threat of the party is also now being factored into how campaigners talk to the under-fire Starmer government.
“We have a Labour government, and ministers are obviously Labour Party, but those ministers listen to Reform,” Deacon said.
“They’re watching the polls. They know that a lot of their key voters, those hero voters, are going over to Reform. So we always just make sure that there’s a Reform perspective in the room when we’re planning a campaign.”
Other lobbyists are urging a little caution given Reform’s still small parliamentary presence, with just five MPs in the House of Commons.
Christine Quigley, vice president at Crestview Strategy, said her outfit is “certainly seeing organizations asking about whether — and how — to engage with Reform,” but said there is “less immediate impetus to engage for many sectors” given Reform’s distance from the actual levers of power.
Still, “I’m going to have to buy much wider trousers and replace my waistcoat collection with much bigger ones,” Fowler, the ex-Reform comms chief, quipped.
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