First this, please, folks:
And then this:
Nigel Farage thundered a simple instruction to his followers: “never trust a Tory“. It was one of his most effective lines, a sneer aimed at a party he accused of betrayal, elitism and cowardice. The Conservatives, he said, were finished. Rotten. Beyond redemption.
And then he opened the doors and let them all in.
Reform UK now resembles less an insurgent movement and more a salvage yard for discarded Conservatives — a refuge for failed ministers, rejected MPs and culture-war loudmouths whose own party finally tired of them. If Farage’s core political claim was authenticity, what followed is not merely irony but outright fraud.
This is not infiltration. It is recruitment.
The Revolving Door of Hypocrisy
Start with Sarah Pochin, a former Conservative councillor who scraped into Parliament for Reform by a majority of six. Her “historic” victory came shortly after she apologised for claiming adverts “full of black people” made her “mad”. Farage, who claims to loathe political toxicity, found no difficulty embracing her.
Then there is Nadine Dorries, the apologist-in-chief for Boris Johnson’s Covid-era governance; the same Johnson Farage once denounced as emblematic of Tory dishonesty. Dorries solemnly announced that only Farage had “the answers”, while simultaneously leaping to defend her old boss as being “at his best”. If this is conviction, it is conviction that bends wherever the cameras are.
Jonathan Gullis, Conservative for 18 years, suddenly discovered that his party had “lost touch” — a revelation that coincided neatly with his own political redundancy. Lia Nici, Chris Green, Lee Anderson, Danny Kruger, Maria Caulfield, Adam Holloway, Sir Jake Berry, Andrea Jenkyns, Marco Longhi, Ross Thomson, David Jones — the list reads less like a rebellion and more like a mass parole hearing.
And now even Nadhim Zahawi, former chancellor, architect of Tory chaos, has arrived to proclaim that Britain needs Nigel Farage as prime minister. The man who helped hollow out the state now presents himself as a born-again insurgent.
If Reform is an anti-establishment movement, why does it look so much like the establishment changing jackets?
“Never Trust a Tory” — Except These Ones
Farage has never explained the contradiction, because he doesn’t need to. His politics are not built on coherence but on performance. “Never trust a Tory” was never a principle; it was a marketing slogan. And slogans are disposable once they’ve served their purpose.
What matters is not ideology but grievance management: harvesting anger, redirecting blame, and offering a new badge to those who have already failed under the old one. Reform does not challenge Conservative rule; it extends its afterlife.
The party is not a break from 14 years of Conservative failure. It is the continuation of it, stripped of responsibility and lubricated with rage.
The Con Is the Point
Farage knows exactly what he is doing. He condemns the Tories as a brand while recycling their personnel wholesale. He denounces Westminster while welcoming those who built it. He rails against betrayal while shaking hands with its architects.
This is not incompetence. It is insincerity elevated to strategy.
The great trick is persuading voters that the same people, with the same instincts and the same record, somehow become anti-establishment the moment they stand next to Nigel Farage. That failure is forgiven if it is repackaged as fury.
Reform UK is not the antidote to Conservative collapse. It is Conservatism without shame, a political laundering operation that turns discredited careers into fresh outrage.
Nigel Farage told the country never to trust a Tory.
What he never mentioned was how many he planned to hire.
