Reform UK is a registered company with its deputy leader Richard Tice also listed on Companies House as a person with significant control….reports Asian Lite News
Nigel Farage has announced he is “relinquishing” his majority shareholder position of Reform UK, one day before the party begins its annual conference. In a post on social media, the Clacton MP said: “I’ve now made a decision. I no longer need to control this party. I’m going to let go.”
Unlike most other political parties, Reform UK is a registered company with its deputy leader Richard Tice also listed on Companies House as a person with significant control.
The annual party conference, which is taking place in Birmingham on Friday, has been hailed as the “coming of age” for the party, which gained success in July’s election by winning five seats.
Meanwhile, a row has broken out over Farage’s claim that safety concerns prevent him from holding constituency surgeries, with Parliament’s security services disputing the suggestion. He has repeatedly been accused of not prioritising his Commons role, coming under fire for spending time in the US endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign since July.
Farage has repeatedly been accused of not prioritising his Commons role, coming under fire for spending time in the US endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign following the July 4 election.
Farage said he planned to lead the party into the next election, when he will be 65, unless someone “better looking and brighter comes along”. Two months after getting its first MPs elected, Reform UK is planning a major overhaul of how it is run at its Birmingham conference, with Farage claiming he was “giving ownership of the party and the big decisions over to the members”.
For the first time, members will be able to vote on policy motions, including to adopt a new constitution, which sets out party rules and the responsibilities of the leadership.
Reform won 14% of the vote at July’s general election and has a foothold in Parliament with five MPs, including Farage. Farage announced he was returning as leader during the campaign – something he would have been unable do in a party with a more conventional structure, where leaders tend to be elected by members.
Under the proposed new Reform UK constitution, members will be able to remove Farage – or any other party leader – in a no-confidence vote. A vote can be triggered if 50% of all members write to the chairman requesting a motion of no confidence.
Reform MPs can also force a vote if 50 of them, or 50% of them, write to the chairman requesting one. But this only applies if there are more than 100 Reform MPs in Parliament – a high bar. Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform UK, claimed the party’s membership had jumped by 15,000 since its general election result.
He said a “surge” had increased the membership to more than 80,000, as the party attempts to build a base of dedicated activists. He said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the number of Reform members overtook the Conservative Party in the coming months. Yusuf, a millionaire former banker who was appointed chairman in July, said there had been “huge enthusiasm” for the party since the general election.
“So what we need to do now is build the infrastructure at grassroots level so that enthusiasm can be converted at the ballot box.”
The Conservative Party does not publish its membership figures. But in the most recent Tory leadership contest of 2022, more than 140,000 members voted in an election with a 82% turnout.
Attracting new members is part of Reform’s plan to develop a more formidable party and campaigning machinery to match its political rivals. Yusuf is leading the process of setting up hundreds of local Reform branches across the UK and growing its pool of activists.