Reform UK launched an all-spectrum campaign the day after the UK’s left-wing government announced its disastrous annual budget statement, with Mr Farage warning of a potential economic crisis so great it could collapse the government, but promising a haven of competence and preference for British taxpayers under a putative future Reform government.
Flexing its donor fundraising ability, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK bought double-page spread adverts across the UK’s major newspapers on Thursday morning to tie into an online media campaign decrying the potentially economically fatal mismanagement of the British government. The message to be sent into homes across the country on Thursday is: “you can see for yourself that nothing works any more… Labour and the Conservatives broke Britain. Reform stands ready to fix Britain”.
Reform and Mr Farage are already — so polls say — the most trusted on the economy in British politics and the party has been blitzing this area in recent weeks, with events and launched focussed on courting London’s financial sector, small businesses, and of course the UK’s hard-pressed taxpayers. Evidently this latest media push is intended to be something of a capstone for these moves, placing a very public promise of fiscal probity under the noses of millions of British voters the day after the Labour government’s big budget announcement started in farce and ended in crushing disappointment, as middle England took the brunt again.
Addressed to “Dear Reader”, Mr Farage reflected: “It is time to be honest with ourselves. The British economy is in desperate trouble. Despite what politicians pretend, you can see for yourself that nothing works any more”.
Classical political campaigning strategy may have it that such a full-on assault with costly newspaper print buys — per The Spectator, today’s adverts cost £700,000, a considerable sum in UK politics and seen as evidence that Reform really has the support of ever more donors both large and small — so far out from the next election is wasteful. Yet both the act and the wording of Farage’s address make evident one of his core claims, that the economy is being so badly mismanaged by Labour and Reeves that it risks a crisis so severe it could bring down the government itself and trigger a snap general election.
It is for this event Farage has repeatedly said in recent weeks he feels his party needs to be prepared for. Indeed, as expressed today: “These clueless politicians have never run a business and have no idea how the real world works. Thanks to them, I would not be surprised if a financial crisis causes an early general election. When that election comes, Reform UK will be ready”.
In his pitch to the nation, Mr Farage made his appeal to the workers of “alarm clock Britain” and “small and family businesses” that he would “make work pay”. This means tax cuts when feasible and scrapping green politics boondoggles that have left the UK with some of the highest energy prices on earth, he said. Other specific areas include slashing the cost of the welfare bill by making benefits for citizens only and tackling “uncontrolled immigration draining our nation”.
Mr Farage said: “We are the favourites to win the next election. I take that responsibility seriously our team will be ready with the plan to make Britain once again the best place to start a business, raise a family, and build a future.”
The media blitz followed by a day the Labour government’s budget which, as reported, has doubled-down on economic stagnation by going for tax and spending rises. The Reform Party was quick to respond, with deputy leader Richard Tice calling it a “car crash” and said it was a budget for those on welfare, not for those in work.
Mr Farage, for his part, lamented how Rachel Reeves’ words did not match her actions, noting talk on cutting debt while actually increasing borrowing. He said on Wednesday: “we are in an economic doom loop and no one seems to recognise it, neither the last Conservative government nor this Labour one. There isn’t really much truth being spoken about how much trouble we’re really in… this really was the ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ budget with a healthy dose of socialism thrown in”.
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