Nigel Farage has a new game plan - and the Tories should be terrified

Balloons, fireworks, music, singing, dancing, cheering, no this wasn’t a Britain’s Got Talent finale, it was Nigel Farage’s declaration that Reform is changing - and it’s supposedly professionalising.

Throughout the day there appeared to be frequent conflict within Reform UK - not party infighting like Labour and the Tories, but between the simultaneous desire to professionalise and the desire to be a ‘fun’ party like the good old working men’s club style of UKIP.

On the one hand, it was full of members in suits, in a modern corporate location; on the other, the bars were open from 10am with the option of buying a ‘pint lanyard’ so Reform members could carry extra beer around their neck.

On the one hand, Nigel Farage announced some radical changes to the structure of Reform UK and giving control back to members; on the other, Rupert Lowe MP appeared to spark a constitutional crisis by freelancing a policy about abolishing devolution.

It seemed appropriate that Nigel Farage should make his conference speech on the same day Apple releases the new iPhone 16.

As a lifelong fan of the Californian tech company, Mr Farage’s conference speech promising to introduce major democratising reforms to the party reminded me wholeheartedly of one of Steve Jobs’ keynotes.

He praised his choices of deputy leader (Richard Tice) and chairman (Zia Yusuf); announced a new drive to recruit managers and organisers; and pledged to rigorously vet all candidates from now on.

Mr Farage said: “The infant that Reform was has been growing up. We had the teenage tantrums but we’re now at a different point. The party is an adult. This is when Reform UK comes of age.”

Presumably that’s why booze was so freely available in the conference hall - albeit with a ban on members buying more than four drinks at once.

This was a new Farage, a driven Farage, a Farage who not only wants to destroy the Tories, but appears to have the foundations of a gameplan that could, if the Conservatives don’t make the right choice to replace Rishi Sunak, genuinely happen.

Mr Farage’s loyal supporters have spent the last decade telling us he will be Prime Minister one day. For the first time, this claim doesn’t sound so swivel-eyed and loony anymore.