Reform UK wants voters to believe it is the party ready to impose order on Britain. Yet behind the slogans, the booming speeches and Nigel Farage’s carefully cultivated image as the political outsider who can “fix” the country, his party increasingly looks like a shambles.
Now one of its most prominent supporters has walked away — and his parting shots are devastating.
Tim Montgomerie is hardly a Labour activist looking for an excuse to attack Reform. The former Conservative insider, founder of ConservativeHome and long-standing figure on the political right, joined Reform because he believed it offered a serious alternative. He still says he wants to support its political direction.
But he has decided he wants no part of the organisation behind it.
That should set alarm bells ringing.
Montgomerie has described a party riven by competing factions, saying bluntly: “There are lots of camps.” He accused Farage of failing to establish basic standards of behaviour, declaring: “Nigel has failed to make clear what’s acceptable and what isn’t.”
And his assessment of Reform HQ is even more brutal.
“There are too many people in that building [Reform HQ] who don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. “They need to be more professional.”
That is not the language of a disgruntled outsider. It is the verdict of somebody who got close enough to see how the operation works — or, apparently, how it doesn’t.
Then came the warning to Farage himself: “Get a grip.”
Montgomerie said Farage had previously been “brilliant” at policing the political right. But now, he argued, the Reform leader needs to act “for the sake of his legacy and the sake of decency” and “bring people like Zia [Yusuf] under control.”
That is an extraordinary rebuke.
It becomes more serious when Montgomerie turns his fire on Yusuf, one of the most prominent figures around Farage. He accused him of freelancing on policy and undermining the party’s own positions.
“I think he freelances too much on policy, he’s undermined party policies. I don’t know how he gets away with it,” Montgomerie said.
Then came the explosive suggestion that Yusuf may have ambitions beyond simply helping Farage.
Montgomerie said he could not understand Yusuf’s behaviour “unless his primary aim is to be party leader”, adding that he appeared more interested in currying favour with the Reform vote than helping Farage become Prime Minister.
Whether that allegation is fair is ultimately for Yusuf to answer. But the fact that such accusations are now being aired publicly tells its own story.
This is supposed to be a political party preparing for government.
Instead, its senior figures are publicly attacking one another, supporters are being suspended, factions are manoeuvring and one of its most prominent supporters is walking away while accusing the leadership of losing control.
And the timing could hardly be worse.
Reform has just been battered by the Channel 4 undercover investigation into alleged attempts to arrange foreign funding for political polling. Two senior figures, James Orr and Dan Jukes, stepped down pending investigation. Reform denies wrongdoing, while Farage has described the operation as “entrapment” and insisted that no illegal money was taken.
But the political damage is not simply about whether a criminal offence ultimately occurred. It is about competence, judgement and whether a party demanding the keys to government can be trusted to run itself.
That is precisely where Montgomerie’s criticism bites.
His most revealing warning was not even about money or personalities. It was about political direction.
“I want to still be a supporter,” he said, “but that requires them being more like Reform and less like the AfD.”
Read that again.
A prominent figure from the British political right is warning Reform UK that it risks becoming too much like Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland.
That is not an accusation that can simply be brushed aside as a left-wing smear.
It comes from inside Reform’s own broad political family.
And while the party is tearing itself apart, Farage is simultaneously pushing ever harder on cultural and immigration issues. His latest call for a nationwide ban on face coverings, including the burqa, has opened another front in the battle over Reform’s political identity.
At the same time, Reform has been cultivating an increasingly close relationship with France’s far-right National Rally. Its migration agreement with Jordan Bardella has already generated controversy in France, with questions over what the deal actually means and whether it represents a departure from established National Rally policy.
None of this proves that Reform is doomed.
It does, however, expose the enormous gap between its image and its reality.
The party sells itself as disciplined, decisive and ready to govern.
Its own senior figures describe something very different: “lots of camps”, people at headquarters who “don’t know what they’re doing”, a leader who needs to “get a grip”, and a political operation that risks looking more like the AfD than the Reform Montgomerie originally signed up to support.
That is not strength.
That is chaos.
And perhaps the most damaging thing of all is that these aren’t criticisms coming from Reform’s enemies.
They are coming from inside the house.
Reform has spent years telling Britain that the established parties are broken.
Now its own supporters are asking whether the same accusation can be levelled at Reform.
The great irony is brutal.
The party that promises to rescue Britain from political chaos increasingly looks incapable of rescuing itself.
