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At the Reform UK party conference in September, its leader, Nigel Farage, announced a “historic mission” for his party: to professionalise, to modernise and mobilise a “people’s army” to win support all over the country.
It came off the back of unprecedented success for Reform at the general election: no populist right party in the UK had ever taken as many as its five seats in July. And they were won despite a campaign marred by racist and Islamophobic remarks from Reform members and candidates.
This autumn, then, Farage has set out to build on that momentum, attempting to create a party that can win even more seats at the next election. Farage has even claimed he could be the next prime minister.
Today in Focus presenter Helen Pidd follows this effort to transform Reform UK, speaking to delegates at the Birmingham conference in September; attending the founding of a constituency branch in October in Greater Manchester, where activists hope to unseat a Labour cabinet minister; then travelling on to Clacton, the seat of Farage himself, to find out how residents are feeling there.
All the while, she asks: is the Reform party genuinely turning itself into something new? And how seriously should we be taking Nigel Farage?
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