How the cracks are starting to show in Farage's Reform

Dependence on their leader, issues with councils the party runs, and the ongoing policy vacuum could throw serious doubt over whether Reform's lead in the polls is sustainable

- DAVID MADDOX

The warning to one of her fellow councillors by Linden Kemkaran, Reform's leader on Kent County Council (KCC), may well be one that voters will have to get used to if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister.

"I'm afraid if you don't like it, you are just going to have to fucking suck it up," she said in a rather chaotic Zoom meeting. During the tape of the video conference, first published by The Guardian, Ms Kemkaran also made a very pertinent point, and one which should worry Mr Farage and other senior figures in Reform.

“Let’s not forget, we are the shop window in KCC. People are looking at us, they are judging us every single minute of every single day. Nigel knows that. He is super aware that we are the flagship council.”

The problem the party has is, if the party was a shop, it is increasingly looking like one of those “everything for £1” shops in a rundown high street where the once great flagship stores (the Tories and Labour) are now mostly boarded up.

Reform is still massively ahead in the polls (32 per cent to the Tories’ 17 per cent and Labour’s 15 per cent according to Find Out Now) but cracks are beginning to show that could throw some doubt on whether its big lead is sustainable.

This rather shambolic video from Kent has coincided with new issues regarding people close to Mr Farage and the arrival of a very right-wing, antiabortion, Christian nationalist adviser for the Reform leader.

Crack 1: Proving themselves in government

Let us start with Kent, where Reform took over last May promising to bring down council tax with their new Elon Musk-inspired Doge units.