Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is on a mission to win over businesses before the next election. Maurício Alencar and Ali Lyon report on how the party’s upcoming conference in Birmingham could determine its political future.

By the time Britain’s executives descend on the Reform UK party conference this week, many will already be well-acquainted with the party’s key figures.

Over a months-long programme of City breakfasts and West End dinners, senior spokespeople have sought to persuade investors and industrial titans alike of the merits of their radical plans for government. The drive, which according to one party source has at times involved three senior figures being at different Square Mile eateries on any one morning, has been well received from those in attendance – and marks a significant step change from the rough-and-ready approach of Reform’s start-up culture of old.

“Their engagement has been very good,” one attendee told City AM. “The feedback has been positive.”

Wooing business chiefs with luxury bites in the capital is nothing new. Tony Blair’s New Labour operation famously launched what became known as their ‘prawn cocktail offensive’, to nullify the Conservatives’ ‘New Labour, New Danger’ messaging. Rachel Reeves’ mirrored that courtship a quarter of a century later in what was dubbed her ‘smoked salmon offensive’.

Farage’s insurgent movement, formed out of the ashes of the Brexit Party in 2021, has opted to treat executives from the worlds of finance, energy and tech with surprisingly continental fare: pastries, cold meats and fruit. 

The series of industry breakfasts have, say lobbyists, been just one part of a major overhaul of Reform’s external affairs operation. 

On Thursday, the fruits of that push will come to a head at the party’s Birmingham jamboree, where business – and its interests – will be placed at the heart of its conference agenda for the first time. There, the party faithful will rub shoulders with a coterie of industry body chiefs and, in a marked departure from previous gatherings, hear from blue-chip firms as diverse as Google, Cadent Gas and Panmure Liberum.

Last year’s gathering intentionally looked more like a Donald Trump rally than traditional conference, devoid of a formal fringe event agenda that, one said, lent it a “decidedly amateur” feel.

Since then, the party has rolled out one of the most intense engagement programmes of all the major parties, say lobbyists, issuing weekly updates on plans and events, and showing signs of some “really deep policy thinking”.

“Business interest in Reform UK has sharpened since the last party conference, with a shift towards engaging directly rather than taking a ‘wait and see’ approach,” Fraser Raleigh, managing director at SEC Newgate, told City AM. “At the same time Reform has been encouraging that engagement and strengthening its policy and external affairs teams.”

Reform lures business chiefs

Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems have all hosted Business Days at their party conferences for years. Reform’s move to follow established political parties is something of a necessity, sources have suggested. The party continues to lead most polls even after a ‘Burnham bounce’. It controls 14 more councils and became the second largest party in both Welsh and Scottish parliaments. And its small business policy platform now covers everything from scrapping GDPR to protecting family firms. 

Cheaper tickets have also helped lure more execs up the M40. Whereas it costs commercial representatives about £780 to get a two-day pass to the conference with access to a lounge where drinks will be hosted by Farage, Labour is charging industry chiefs about £2,425 to get full access to their conference. The Conservatives are charging normal commercial guests £1,485 and £3,500 for those who are attending their Business Day.

As a result, Reform has doubled the number of commercial ticket sales from last year, City AM has learned. A separate dinner with key figures from Reform in the main conference hall has also been sold out for over a month. The party says it is investing hard on the banquet, where attendees will enjoy a three-course meal while being serenaded by a military veterans band.

Consequently, the demographic of business chiefs attending has gone up a notch. Whereas last year, business representation largely comprised agency lobbyists dispatched on factfinding missions, this year, executives from the companies themselves are coming to engage with top Reform chiefs.

“They clearly do want to get business on board,” the head of government affairs at one FTSE 100 firm said. “That is something that they see as important, and the conference is a big part of that. There are a few big companies circling around it.”

Conversations with ‘adults in the room’

For all the improved relations, though, business’ newfound interest is not without its reservations.

In recent months, the party’s prickly home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf has launched a string of ad hominem attacks on companies over their attitudes to immigration. Serco found itself on the receiving end of stinging criticisms on deportations policy. It issued a statement hitting back at Yusuf’s accusation that it was taking “political positions” on deportation, saying instead that it would expect to continue delivering services on detention and deportations in the future. 

But the biggest clashes came between Yusuf and Vodafone and Deliveroo. 

The senior Reform politician said he was prepared to send the telecoms firm’s chief executive Margherita Della Valle to prison after the party claimed that thousands of its Sim cards were distributed to asylum seekers under a charity programme. The broadside was particularly awkward as Vodafone had already agreed to put on panel events at the Reform conference before it became the target of Yusuf’s online attacks, according to two people familiar with the matter. The FTSE 100 telecoms giant is still scheduled to host a panel on fibre networks and “getting the UK AI ready” on Business Day. 

City AM understands senior representatives from Delivero will also be in attendance, even after Yusuf unveiled his ‘Deliveroo Law’ aimed at cracking down on illegal migrants working for the delivery platform. Both firms declined to comment.

On the one hand, disagreements between top party figures and bosses – not just Yusuf, but also Robert Jenrick, who warned that business’s cosy relationship with Whitehall could amount to “crony capitalism” – has made engagement more important. Industry chiefs want to get their views across to Reform before potentially damaging policies are formed. 

For example, some of the most senior officials at UK Finance, the industry body that stands strongly against a higher banking tax, which is supported by Farage, are also attending the conference. Reform sources welcomed more company and industry representatives turning up to allow for dialogue that shows there are “adults in the room”. 

But another industry source admitted there was still a “high degree of reticence” in dealing with the party. As one long-time City worker explained, his juniors and co-workers were not overly excited about seeing him pictured at a meeting with Tice because it made it look like the business had endorsed the party. Backlash from Ipswich Town fans also forced the club’s chief executive to apologise for “harm and distress” after Farage used Portman Road as a backdrop for a promotional video. Of the so-called ‘B5’ industry groups, just one organisation is sending their most senior official.

Cooling on crypto

Part of their stubborn reluctance may also be down to getting caught in a whirlwind of media scrutiny over Nigel Farage and Reform’s dealings with crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and the gambler George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster. Questions over a £5m donation by Harborne before the 2024 election are not going away. A parliamentary standards investigation is set to loom over the Reform conference. 

One especially distinctive aspect about this year’s conference is the absence of any events or sponsors relating to crypto and digital currency. Last year, crypto financiers and companies were offered a string of perks: free tickets and access to Reform figures. Crypto payments firm Zebec was one of the flagship sponsors 12 months ago while blockchain-based lending firm Aave Labs’ founder interviewed Yusuf. Freebies are no longer on offer, sources told City AM, and there are no scheduled panel events or sponsorships relating to digital currencies. 

A source who has been involved in discussions with the party said there was a “concerted effort” to dial down digital assets at the conference and one party source said there was heightened interest from other parts of the private sector at this year’s conference anyway. By design or default, Reform’s associations with crypto are slipping. Yet critics will likely argue that Farage’s dealings with crypto will continue to be a sticking point for the party for several more months.

It is in the next 12 months of business relationship-building that Farage and his team will be keen to assert their lead over Labour and the Conservatives. The Reform UK leader publicly predicted that an election could be called in 2027. Party officials have privately pushed industry leaders to ramp up engagement on the basis of this point. An industry figure told City AM they believed efforts to accelerate engagement would help pre-empt shocks and surprises in a manifesto, stopping any controversial pledges from being “thrown back in their faces”.

Reform is generally optimistic about its chances of being crowned the pro-business party of record before the next election. Labour enjoyed those credentials before Reeves’ first Budget ruptured those relations. A spokesman said a “surge in sponsorships and record industry turnout” shows how far Reform has come. One official said ties were “fundamentally changing quite rapidly”.

Rapid is the word to describe the engagement shake-up, businesses agree. And so eager are Reform figures to win bosses over, that the party of Lee Anderson – a former miner who regularly posts a video of himself patting a bacon sandwich – has even been willing to put on menus at which some their own MPs would usually balk.

“The breakfasts and dinners have been a huge step forward,” one executive heading up to Birmingham concludes, adding: “They’re even offering vegan options.”