Reform was told there was ‘nothing in’ Channel 4 sting before aides quit

Reform UK went into its annual conference last week with one piece of apparently comforting intelligence about the impending Channel 4 investigation hanging over the party: there was not much in it.

That reassurance turned out to be rather optimistic.

The undercover documentary appeared to show Nigel Farage’s chief of staff Dan Jukes and head of policy James Orr discussing ways of getting overseas money into British politics while circumventing electoral rules. Both men were gone within days.

According to former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara, however, senior figures in Reform had been led to believe before broadcast that the footage was unlikely to cause them much trouble.

“The clip looks terrible,” MacNamara said on the latest episode of In The Room. “What they’re doing is obviously wrong and bad, but it’s also clumsy and amateur. Entertainingly, the Reform team were told in advance that there wasn’t very much in it.”

Her co-host Cleo Watson, a former No 10 special adviser, supplied the obvious punchline: “Apart from themselves.

“It reminds me of something that the Reform team was saying this time last year: ‘The only thing in our way is ourselves.’ Well done, lads. Prophetic.”

If the scandal was supposed to derail Reform’s conference in Birmingham, there was not much evidence of it inside the hall.

MacNamara, who attended the gathering, said activists appeared largely unmoved by the revelations, with criticism of the party quickly folded into the familiar argument that Farage and Reform were being targeted by the political and media establishment.

Farage himself struck much the same note from the conference stage, railing against “highly coordinated campaigns” and “attacks” on his party.

What was more interesting, MacNamara argued, was what happened behind the scenes.

Farage has traditionally preferred to close ranks when one of his own lands in trouble. This time, Jukes and Orr disappeared remarkably quickly.

“He’s usually about hunkering down, keeping his people close to him, saying ‘get lost’ to everyone else. But he did actually fire these two people really, really quickly. Well, technically, they resigned. But a year ago, I’m not sure Farage would have done that.”

That may say something about how Reform now sees itself. A party that wants to be treated as a plausible government can afford rather less amateurism than a protest movement.

And for MacNamara, that may ultimately be the more uncomfortable part of the episode for Farage.

“The more damaging thing about it is this competence question, rather than the corruption question.

“That’s the more damaging thing. Voters don’t like people who are not very good, even if that’s not very good at being baddies. [The clip] looked really bunglingly amateur.”

Listen to the full episode of In The Room on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch on YouTube.